THE  LIBRARIES 


Headquarters  Nights 


Headquarters  Nights 


A  Record  of  Conversations  and  Experiences 

at  the  Headquarters  of  the  German 

Army  in  France  and  Belgium 


By  Vernon  Kellogg 


The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press 
Boston 


Copyright,  igiy 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS,  INC. 

FIRST  PRINTING,  SEPTEMBER,  1917 
SECOND  PRINTING,  OCTOBER,  1917 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Biographical  Note 7 

Foreword  by  Theodore  Roosevelt 13 

The  Headquarters  of  the  Great  General 

Stafif 15 

Von  Bissing's  Headquarters 57 

A  Belgian  Record 105 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Vernon  Kellogg  graduated  from  the  uni- 
versity of  his  native  state  of  Kansas  in  1889. 
After  winning  his  master's  degree,  he  studied 
at  Cornell,  and  subsequently  spent  several 
years  abroad  specializing  upon  entomology 
and  biology  at  the  University  of  Leipzig,  and 
considerably  later  at  the  University  of  Paris. 
For  the  past  twenty  years,  he  has  been  a 
professor  of  entomology  in  Stanford  Uni- 
versity, writing  and  lecturing  on  problems  of 
life  in  a  multitude  of  its  most  interesting  and 
extraordinary  forms. 

'  Soon  after  the  war  broke  out.  Professor 
Kellogg,  pacifist  and  humanitarian  by  con- 
viction, obtained  a  furlough  from  his  univer- 
sity and  went  abroad  to  devote  himself  to  the 
alleviation  of  human  suffering.  It  was  not 
long  before  he  joined  his  friend  of  long  stand- 
ing, Mr.  Herbert  Hoover,  in  the  memorable 
enterprise  of  the  Commission  for  the  Relief 
of  Belgium,  of  which  he  has  become  the  official 
historian.     In  connection  with  this  work  of 

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Headquarters      Nights 

civilian  relief,  it  is  worth  recording  that  his 
wife,  Charlotte  Hoffman  Kellogg,  was  the 
only  woman  member  of  that  commission. 
Both  Professor  and  Mrs.  Kellogg  spent  their 
strength  and  energy  to  the  utmost  upon  the 
cause;  and  in  the  years  which  preceded  the 
inevitable  intervention  of  the  United  States, 
it  was  Professor  Kellogg's  duty  to  serve 
during  considerable  periods  as  a  sort  of 
informal  ambassador  of  the  C.  R.  B.,  both  at 
the  Headquarters  of  the  Great  General 
Staff  and  at  the  Headquarters  of  the  German 
Army  of  Occupation  of  Belgium.  The  unique 
opportunities  given  through  this  official  yet 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  German  higher 
command  and  with  German  civilians  of  im- 
portance are  set  forth  in  this  little  book,  which 
incidentally  becomes  an  illuminating  record 
of  the  conversion  of  a  reasoned  pacifist  into 
a  supporter  of  the  great  and  necessary  war. 

In  an  article  published  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  Professor  Kellogg  once  gave  a  de- 
scription of  the  surroundings  in  which  he 
lived  during  those  tense  months.  "The 
Great  Headquarters,"  he  wrote,  "is  quiet. 
The  loudest  sounds  there  come  from  the 
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Headquarters      Nights 

playing  of  children  in  the  streets.  In  the 
larger  buildings  of  the  town  sit  many  officers 
over  maps  and  dispatches.  Telephones  and 
telegraph  instruments,  stenographers,  mes- 
sengers, all  the  bustle  of  busy  but  quiet  offices, 
are  there.  The  General  Staff,  the  General 
Quartermaster's  group,  the  General  Intend- 
ant's  department,  scores,  aye,  hundreds,  of 
officers,  play  here  the  war  game  for  Germany 
on  the  chessboard  whose  squares  are  bits  of 
Europe. 

"The  small  gray  town  is  another  head- 
quarters, too;  it  is  the  great  headquarters  of 
all  relief  work  that  goes  on  in  the  North  of 
France.  Here  lives,  by  permission  and  ar- 
rangement with  the  German  staff,  the  Ameri- 
can head  of  the  neutral  relief  work — he  and 
one  other  American  who  is  the  local  head  of 
the  district  including  a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  people  around  the  town.  They 
live  in  a  large  comfortless  house,  and  with 
them  two  German  staff  officers  as  official 
protectors  and  friendly  jailers.  And  they, 
too,  are  part  of  the  neutral  relief  work,  for  no 
man  can  live  with  it  and  not  become  part  of 
it.  It  is  too  appealing,  too  gripping. 
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Headquarters      Nights 

"We  had  seven  orderlies  and  two  chauffeurs, 
for  we  are  provided  with  two  swift  gray  mili- 
tary motors  for  our  incessant  inspecting. 
One  of  the  orderlies  is  named  cook,  and  he 
cooks,  in  a  way.  Another  was  a  barber  before 
he  became  corporal,  which  was  convenient. 
And  another  blacked  my  shoes  and  beat  my 
clothes  in  the  garden  with  a  rough  stick  and 
turned  on  the  water  full  flow  in  our  improvised 
bath  at  a  given  hour  each  morning,  so  that  I 
had  to  get  up  promptly  to  turn  it  off  before  it 
flooded  the  whole  house. 

*'  Quite  four  nights  of  each  seven  in  the  week 
there  were  other  staff  officers  in  to  dinner, 
and  we  debated  such  trifles  as  German  Mili- 
tarismus,  the  hate  of  the  world  for  Germany, 
American  munitions  for  the  Allies,  submarin- 
ing and  Zeppelining,  the  Kaiser,  the  German 
people. 

"We  were  not  all  of  one  mind.  'Now  all 
keep  still,'  demands  my  officer,  the  Haupt- 
mann  Graf  W.,  'and  my  American  will  tell 
us  just  what  the  Americans  mean  by  German 
Militarismus.* 

"They  all  kept  still  for  the  first  ten  words 
and  then  all  broke  out  together : 

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Headquarters      Nights 

'"No,  we  shall  tell  you  what  it  is.  Organ- 
ization and  obedience — nothing  more,  noth- 
ing less.  It  is  that  that  makes  Germany- 
great.  And  it  is  that  that  you  must  come  to 
if  you  would  be  a  great  nation.' 

**I  protested  that  I  thought  we  are  already 
a  great  nation. 

^*  ^Well,  then,'  they  answered,  'if  you  would 
continue  great.  Otherwise  you  will  smash. 
Democracy,  bah!  license,  lawlessness,  dis- 
ruption. Organize,  obey, — or  smash.'  And 
they  believe  it. " 

When  the  actual  distribution  of  Belgian 
relief  had  passed  out  of  American  control, 
Professor  Kellogg  followed  Mr.  Hoover  to  his 
new  patriotic  work,  and  is  now  an  important 
member  of  the  organization  which  controls 
the  distribution  and  influences  the  consump- 
tion of  the  food  of  one  hundred  millions  of  the 
American  people. 


II 


FOREWORD 

One  of  the  most  graphic  pictures  of  the 
German  attitude,  the  attitude  which  has 
rendered  this  war  inevitable,  is  contained  in 
Vernon  Kellogg's  'Headquarters  Nights/ 
It  is  a  convincing,  and  an  evidently  truthful, 
exposition  of  the  shocking,  the  unspeakably 
dreadful  moral  and  intellectual  perversion  of 
character  which  makes  Germany  at  present  a 
menace  to  the  whole  civilized  world. 

The  man  who  reads  Kellogg's  sketch  and 
yet  fails  to  see  why  we  are  at  war,  and  why 
we  must  accept  no  peace  save  that  of  over- 
whelming victory,  is  neither  a  good  American 
nor  a  true  lover  of  mankind. 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Sagamore  Hill, 
August  26,  1917. 


13 


The  Headquarters  of  the  Great 
General  Staff 


I 

We  do  not  hear  much  now  from  the 
German  intellectuals.  Some  of  the  pro- 
fessors are  writing  for  the  German  news- 
papers, but  most  of  them  are  keeping 
silent  in  public.  The  famous  Ninety- 
three  are  not  issuing  any  more  proclama- 
tions. When  your  armies  are  moving 
swiftly  and  gloriously  forward  under  the 
banners  of  sweetness  and  light,  to  carry 
the  proper  civilization  to  an  improperly 
educated  and  improperly  thinking  world, 
it  is  easier  to  make  declarations  of  what 
is  going  to  happen,  and  why  it  is,  than 
when  your  armies  are  struggling  for  life 
with  their  backs  to  the  wall — of  a  French 
village  they  have  shot  and  burned  to  ruin 
for  a  reason  that  does  not  seem  so  good  a 
reason  now. 

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Headquarters      Nights 

But  some  of  the  intellectuals  still  speak 
in  the  old  strain  in  private.  It  has  been 
my  peculiar  privilege  to  talk  through 
long  evening  hours  with  a  few  of  these 
men  at  Headquarters.  Not  exactly  the 
place,  one  would  think,  for  meeting  these 
men,  but  let  us  say  this  for  them:  some 
of  them  fight  as  well  as  talk.  And  they 
fight,  not  simply  because  they  are  forced 
to,  but  because,  curiously  enough,  they 
believe  much  of  their  talk.  This  is  one 
of  the  dangers  from  the  Germans  to 
which  the  world  is  exposed:  they  really 
believe  much  of  what  they  say. 

A  word  of  explanation  about  the 
Headquarters,  and  how  I  happened  to 
be  there.  It  was — it  is  no  longer,  and 
that  is  why  I  can  speak  more  freely 
about  it — not  only  Headquarters  but 
the  Great  Headquarters — Grosses  Haupt- 
quartier — of  all  the  German  Armies  of 
the  West.  Here  were  big  Von  Schoeler, 
General- Intendant,     and     the     scholarly- 


Headquarters       Nights 

looking  Von  Freytag,  General-Quartier- 
meister,  with  his  unscholarly-looking, 
burly  chief  of  staff,  Von  Zoellner.  Here 
also  were  Von  Falkenhayn,  the  Kaiser's 
Chief  of  Staff,  and  sometimes  even  the 
All-Highest  himself,  who  never  missed  the 
Sunday  morning  service  in  the  long  low 
corrugated-iron  shed  which  looked  all 
too  little  like  a  royal  chapel  ever  to  inter- 
est a  flitting  French  bomber. 

But  not  only  was  this  small  gray  town 
on  the  Meuse,  just  where  the  water  pours 
out  of  its  beautiful  canon  course  through 
the  Ardennes,  the  headquarters  of  the 
German  General  Staff — it  was  also  the 
station,  by  arrangement  with  the  staff,  of 
the  American  Relief  Commission's  hum- 
ble ununiformed  chief  representative  for 
the  North  of  France  (occupied  French 
territory).  For  several  months  I  held 
this  position,  living  with  the  German 
officer  detached  from  the  General  Quar- 
termaster's staff  to  protect  me — and 
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Headquarters      Nights 

watch  me.  Later,  too,  as  director  of  the 
Commission  at  Brussels,  I  had  frequent 
occasion  to  visit  Headquarters  for  con- 
ferences with  officers  of  the  General 
Staff.  It  was  thus  that  I  had  opportunity 
for  these  Headquarters  Nights. 

Among  the  officers  and  officials  of 
Headquarters  there  were  many  strong 
and  keen  German  militaristic  brains — 
that  goes  without  saying — but  there 
were  also  a  few  of  the  professed  intel- 
lectuals— men  who  had  exchanged,  for 
the  moment,  the  academic  robes  of  the 
Aula  for  the  field-gray  uniforms  of  the 
army.  The  second  commandant  of  the 
Headquarters  town  was  a  professor  of 
jurisprudence  at  the  University  of  Mar- 
burg; and  an  infantry  captain,  who  lived 
in  the  house  with  my  guardian  officer 
and  me,  is  the  professor  of  zoology  in  one 
of  the  larger  German  universities,  and 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  present-day 
biologists.  I  do  not  wish  to  indicate  his 
person  more  particularly,  for  I  shall  say 

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Headquarters       Nights 

some  hard  things  about  him — or  about 
him  as  representative  of  many — and  we 
are  friends.  Indeed,  he  was  Privat-docent 
in  charge  of  the  laboratory  in  which  I 
v/orked  years  ago  at  the  University  of 
Leipzig,  and  we  have  been  correspondents 
and  friends  ever  since.  How  he  came 
to  be  at  Headquarters,  and  at  precisely 
the  same  time  that  I  was  there,  is  a  story 
which  has  its  interest,  but  cannot  be  told 
at  present. 

Our  house  was  rather  a  favored  centre, 
for  'my  officer,'  Graf  W. —  he  always 
called  me  'my  American,'  but  he  could 
no  more  get  away  from  me  than  I  from 
him — is  a  generous  entertainer,  and  our 
dinners  were  rarely  without  guests  from 
other  headquarters  houses.  Officers, 
from  veteran  generals  down  to  pink- 
cheeked  lieutenants,  came  to  us  and 
asked  us  to  them.  The  discussions,  be- 
gun at  dinner,  lasted  long  into  the  night. 
They  sat  late,  these  German  officers,  over 
their    abundant    wine — French    vintages 

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Headquarters      Nights 

conveniently  arranged  for.  And  always 
we  talked  and  tried  to  understand  one 
another;  to  get  the  other  man's  point  of 
view,  his  Weltanschauung. 

Well,  I  say  it  dispassionately  but  with 
conviction:  if  I  understand  theirs,  it  is  a 
point  of  view  that  will  never  allow  any 
land  or  people  controlled  by  it  to  exist 
peacefully  by  the  side  of  a  people  gov- 
erned by  our  point  of  view.  For  their 
point  of  view  does  not  permit  of  a  live- 
and-let-live  kind  of  carrying  on.  It  is  a 
point  of  view  that  justifies  itself  by  a 
whole-hearted  acceptance  of  the  worst  of 
Neo-Darwinism,  the  Allmacht  of  natural 
selection  applied  rigorously  to  human 
life  and  society  and  Kultur. 

Professor  von  Flussen — that  is  not 
his  name — is  a  biologist.  So  am  I.  So 
we  talked  out  the  biological  argument 
for  war,  and  especially  for  this  war. 
The  captain-professor  has  a  logically 
constructed  argument  why,  for  the  good 
of  the  world,  there  should  be  this  war, 


Headquarters      Nights 

and  why,  for  the  good  of  the  world,  the 
Germans  should  win  it,  win  it  completely 
and  terribly.  Perhaps  I  can  state  his 
argument  clearly  enough,  so  that  others 
may  see  and  accept  his  reasons,  too.  Un- 
fortunately for  the  peace  of  our  evenings, 
I  was  never  convinced.  That  is,  never 
convinced  that  for  the  good  of  the  world 
the  Germans  should  win  this  war,  com- 
pletely and  terribly.  I  was  convinced, 
however,  that  this  war,  once  begun,  must 
be  fought  to  a  finish  of  decision — a  finish 
that  will  determine  whether  or  not  Ger- 
many's point  of  view  is  to  rule  the  world. 
And  this  conviction,  thus  gained,  meant 
the  conversion  of  a  pacifist  to  an  ardent 
supporter,  not  of  War,  but  of  this  war; 
of  fighting  this  war  to  a  definitive  end — • 
that  end  to  be  Germany's  conversion 
to  be  a  good  Germany,  or  not  much  of 
any  Germany  at  all.  My  'Headquarters 
Nights'  are  the  confessions  of  a  converted 
pacifist. 

In  talking  it  out  biologically,  we  agreed 
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Headquarters      Nights 

that  the  human  race  is  subject  to  the 
influence  of  the  fundamental  biologic  laws 
of  variation,  heredity,  selection,  and  so 
forth,  just  as  are  all  other  animal — and 
plant — kinds.  The  factors  ,  of  organic 
evolution,  generally,  are  factors  in  human 
natural  evolution.  Man  has  risen  from 
his  primitive  bestial  stage  of  glacial  time, 
a  hundred  or  several  hundred  thousand 
years  ago,  when  he  was  animal  among 
animals,  to  the  stage  of  to-day,  always 
under  the  influence  of  these  great  evo- 
lutionary factors,  and  partly  by  virtue 
of  them. 

But  he  does  not  owe  all  of  his  prog- 
ress to  these  factors,  or,  least  of  all,  to 
any  one  of  them,  as  natural  selection, 
a  thesis  Professor  von  Flussen  seemed 
ready  to  maintain. 

Natural  selection  depends  for  its  work- 
ing on  a  rigorous  and  ruthless  struggle 
for  existence.  Yet  this  struggle  has  its 
ameliorations,  even  as  regards  the  lower 
animals,  let  alone  man. 
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Headquarters       Nights 

There  are  three  general  phases  of  this 
struggle : — 

1.  An  inter-specific  struggle,  or  the 
lethal  competition  among  different  ani- 
mal kinds  for  food,  space,  and  opportunity 
to  increase ; 

2.  An  intra-specific  struggle,  or  lethal 
competition  among  the  individuals  of  a 
single  species,  resultant  on  the  over-pro- 
duction due  to  natural  multiplication  by 
geometric  progression;  and, 

3.  The  constant  struggle  of  individuals 
and  species  against  the  rigors  of  climate, 
the  danger  of  storm,  flood,  drought,  cold, 
and  heat. 

Now  any  animal  kind  and  its  indi- 
viduals may  be  continually  exposed  to 
all  of  these  phases  of  the  struggle  for 
existence,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  any 
one  or  more  of  these  phases  may  be 
largely  ameliorated  or  even  abolished  for 
a  given  species  and  its  individuals.  This 
amelioration  may  come  about  through 
a  happy  accident  of  time  or  place,  or 
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Headquarters       Nights 

because  of  the  adoption  by  the  species  of 
a  habit  or  mode  of  life  that  continually 
protects  it  from  a  certain  phase  of  the 
struggle. 

For  example,  the  voluntary  or  involun- 
tary migration  of  representatives  of  a 
species  hard  pressed  to  exist  in  its  native 
habitat,  may  release  it  from  the  too  severe 
rigors  of  a  destructive  climate,  or  take  it 
beyond  the  habitat  of  its  most  dangerous 
enemies,  or  give  it  the  needed  space  and 
food  for  the  support  of  a  numerous  prog- 
eny. Thus,  such  a  single  phenomenon 
as  migration  might  ameliorate  any  one 
or  more  of  the  several  phases  of  the  strug- 
gle for  existence. 

Again,  the  adoption  by  two  widely 
distinct  and  perhaps  antagonistic  species 
of  a  commensal  or  symbiotic  life,  based 
on  the  mutual-aid  principle — thousands 
of  such  cases  are  familiar  to  naturalists 
— would  ameliorate  or  abolish  the  inter- 
specific struggle  between  these  two  species. 
Even  more  effective  in  the  modification 
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Headquarters       Nights 

of  the  influence  due  to  a  bitter  struggle 
for  existence,  is  the  adoption  by  a  species 
of  an  altruistic  or  communistic  mode  of 
existence  so  far  as  its  own  individuals 
are  concerned.  This,  of  course,  would 
largely  ameliorate  for  that  species  the 
intra-specific  phase  of  its  struggle  for 
life.  Such  animal  altruism,  and  the  bio- 
logical success  of  the  species  exhibiting 
it,  is  familiarly  exemplified  by  the  social 
insects  (ants,  bees,  and  wasps). 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  reliance  by 
animal  kinds  for  success  in  the  world 
upon  a  more  or  less  extreme  adoption 
of  the  mutual-aid  principle,  as  contrasted 
with  the  mutual-fight  principle,  is  much 
more  widely  spread  among  the  lower 
animals  than  familiarly  recognized,  while 
in  the  case  of  man,  it  has  been  the  greatest 
single  factor  in  the  achievement  of  his 
proud  biological  position  as  king  of  living 
creatures. 

Altruism — or  mutual  aid,  as  the  biolo- 
gists prefer  to  call  it,  to  escape  the  impli- 
27 


Headquarters      Nights 

cation  of  assuming  too  much  conscious- 
ness in  it — is  just  as  truly  a  fundamental 
biologic  factor  of  evolution  as  is  the  cruel, 
strictly  self-regarding,  exterminating  kind 
of  struggle  for  existence  with  which  the 
Neo-Darwinists  try  to  fill  our  eyes  and 
ears,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  recognition  of 
all  other  factors. 

Professor  von  Flussen  is  Neo-Dar- 
winian,  as  are  most  German  biologists 
and  natural  philosophers.  The  creed  of 
the  Allmacht  of  a  natural  selection  based 
on  violent  and  fatal  competitive  struggle 
is  the  gospel  of  the  German  intellectuals; 
all  else  is  illusion  and  anathema.  The 
mutual-aid  principle  is  recognized  only 
as  restricted  to  its  application  within 
limited  groups.  For  instance,  it  may 
and  does  exist,  and  to  positive  biological 
benefit,  within  single  ant  communities, 
but  the  different  ant  kinds  fight  desper- 
ately with  each  other,  the  stronger  de- 
stroying or  enslaving  the  weaker.  Sim- 
ilarly, it  may  exist  to  advantage  within 
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Headquarters       Nights 

the  limits  of  organized  human  groups — as 
those  which  are  ethnographically,  nation- 
ally, or  otherwise  variously  delimited. 
But  as  with  the  different  ant  species, 
struggle — bitter,  ruthless  struggle — is  the 
rule  among  the  different  human  groups. 
This  struggle  not  only  must  go  on,  for 
that  is  the  natural  law,  but  it  should  go 
on,  so  that  this  natural  law  may  work 
out  in  its  cruel,  inevitable  way  the  salva- 
tion of  the  human  species.  By  its  salva- 
tion is  meant  its  desirable  natural  evolu- 
tion. That  human  group  which  is  in  the 
most  advanced  evolutionary  stage  as 
regards  internal  organization  and  form  of 
social  relationship  is  best,  and  should,  for 
the  sake  of  the  species,  be  preserved  at 
the  expense  of  the  less  advanced,  the 
less  effective.  It  should  win  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  and  this  struggle 
should  occur  precisely  that  the  various 
types  may  be  tested,  and  the  best  not 
only  preserved,  but  put  in  position  to 
impose  its  kind  of  social  organization — its 
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Headquarters       Nights 

Kultur — on  the  others,  or,  alternatively^ 
to  destroy  and  replace  them. 

This  is  the  disheartening  kind  of  argu- 
ment that  I  faced  at  Headquarters; 
argument  logically  constructed  on  prem- 
ises chosen  by  the  other  fellow.  Add  to 
these  assumed  premises  of  the  Allmacht 
of  struggle  and  selection  based  on  it,  and 
the  contemplation  of  mankind  as  a  con- 
geries of  different,  mutually  irreconcilable 
kinds,  like  the  different  ant  species,  the 
additional  assumption  that  the  Germans 
are  the  chosen  race,  and  German  social 
and  political  organization  the  chosen 
type  of  human  community  life,  and  you 
have  a  wall  of  logic  and  conviction  that 
you  can  break  your  head  against  but  can 
never  shatter — by  head  work.  You  long 
for  the  muscles  of  Samson. 


30 


II 

The  danger  from  Germany  is,  I  have 
said,  that  the  Germans  believe  what  they 
say.  And  they  act  on  this  belief.  Pro- 
fessor von  Flussen  says  that  this  war  is 
necessary  as  a  test  of  the  German  position 
and  claim.  If  Germany  is  beaten,  it  will 
prove  that  she  has  moved  along  the 
wrong  evolutionary  line,  and  should  be 
beaten.  If  she  wins,  it  will  prove  that 
she  is  on  the  right  way,  and  that  the  rest 
of  the  world,  at  least  that  part  which  we 
and  the  Allies  represent,  is  on  the  wrong 
way  and  should,  for  the  sake  of  the  right 
evolution  of  the  human  race,  be  stopped 
and  put  on  the  right  way — or  else  be 
destroyed  as  unfit. 

Professor  von  Flussen  is  sure  that 
Germany's  way  is  the  right  way,  and 
that  the  biologic  evolutionary  factors 
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Headquarters      Nights 

are  so  all-controlling  in  determining 
human  destiny,  that  this  being  biolog- 
ically right  is  certain  to  insure  German 
victory.  If  the  wrong  and  unnatural 
alternative  of  an  Allied  victory  should 
obtain,  then  he  would  prefer  to  die  in  the 
catastrophe  and  not  have  to  live  in  a 
world  perversely  resistant  to  natural  law. 
He  means  it  all.  He  will  act  on  this 
belief.  He  does  act  on  it,  indeed.  He 
opposes  all  mercy,  all  compromise  with 
human  soft-heartedness.  Apart  from  his 
horrible  academic  casuistry  and  his  con- 
viction that  the  individual  is  nothing,  the 
State  all,  he  is  a  reasoning  and  a  warm- 
hearted man.  So  are  some  other  Ger- 
mans. But  for  him  and  them  the  test  of 
right  in  this  struggle  is  success  in  it.  So 
let  every  means  to  victory  be  used.  The 
only  intelligence  Germans  should  follow 
in  these  days  is  the  intelligence  of  the 
General  Staff;  the  only  things  to  believe 
and  to  repeat  are  the  statements  of  the 
official  bureau  of  publicity. 
32 


Headquarters      Nights 

There  is  no  reasoning  with  this  sort 
of  thing,  no  finding  of  any  heart  or  soul 
in  it.  There  is  only  one  kind  of  answer: 
resistance  by  brutal  force;  war  to  a  de- 
cision. It  is  the  only  argument  in  rebut- 
tal comprehensible  to  these  men  at  Head- 
quarters into  whose  hands  the  German 
people  have  put  their  destiny. 

One  evening  we  had  a  larger  and  more 
distinguished   dinner  group   than   usual. 

The  Duke  of ,  a  veteran  of  1870  and 

very  close  to  the  Kaiser,  altogether  a  per- 
sonage, had  come  by  motor  with  a  small 
staff  from  his  headquarters  near  the 
Champagne  front.  My  officer  was  all  of 
a  flutter  with  the  importance  and  excite- 
ment of  the  event.  He  coached  all  of  us 
— orderlies,  myself,  and  resident  guests 
— as  to  our  proper  behavior  during  the 
visit.  This  was  to  consist  chiefly  of 
much  stiff  standing  up,  repeated  formal 
bows,  and  respectful  silence.  No  one 
was  to  start  anything  on  his  own  initia- 
33 


Headquarters      Nights 

tive.  We  were  to  take  the  conversational 
cue  from  His  Highness.  The  Comman- 
dant-professor of  jurisprudence  was  there, 
and  a  casual  baron  or  two,  and  various 
Headquarters  officers. 

The  duke  entered,  to  find  us  a  fixed 
row  of  effigies,  hands  on  trouser-seams, 
eyes  front,  chins  up,  in  the  receiving- 
room.  His  Highness  was  a  small  be- 
whiskered  gentleman,  very  abrupt  and 
disconcerting  in  manner,  but  not  at 
all  stupid,  and  very  ready  to  express 
his  opinions  on  all  subjects  of  war  and 
church  history,  his  hobby. 

As  he  surveyed  the  row  of  effigies  his 
keen  eye  spotted  the  ununiformed  Amer- 
ican, and  he  directed  a  questioning  look 
toward  Graf  W.,  the  host.  My  officer 
made  a  concise  explanation  of  the  situa- 
tion, which  the  duke  acknowledged  with 
a  grunt  of  understanding  and  the  sharp 
question, — 

'But  does  he  speak  German?' 

Graf   W.    hastened    to    declare,    'Wie 

34 


Headquarters      Nights 

ein  Eingehorener' — like  a  native — which 
is  far  from  true.  Another  grunt  of 
satisfaction,  a  critical  stare  of  examina- 
tion, and  finally  a  direct  phrase  of  formal 
recognition.  I  reserved  any  exhibition 
of  my  fluent  German,  and  merely  bowed. 
My  officer  gave  me  an  expressive  look  of 
approval  and  found  a  later  chance  to 
congratulate  me  on  my  'success.*  I  sup- 
pose not  being  ordered  out  of  the  room 
may  be  called  success,  under  the  circum- 
stances. 

After  giving  the  whole  row  a  final 
looking-over.  His  Highness  mumbled 
something,  whereupon  an  aide-de-camp 
stepped  briskly  up,  clicked  heels,  and 
held  out  to  him  a  small  box  containing 
several  medals  on  yellow  ribbons.  They 
were  the  insignia  of  some  minor  order  in 
his  duchy.  He  presented  one  to  one  of 
the  barons,  one  to  the  Commandant- 
professor  of  jurisprudence,  and  one  to — 
my  officer's  chief  orderly,  who  acted  as 
house    barber    and    head    waiter!     The 

35 


Headquarters      Nights 

baron  and  professor  had  done  their  best 
and  deepest  bowing,  but  when  Miiller's 
turn  came,  it  was  like  morning  gym- 
nastics in  the  bedroom.  'Touch  toes  ten 
times  with  finger-tips,  legs  remaining 
unbent/  I  fancied  that  the  baron  and 
professor  became  less  satisfied  with  their 
honor,  the  more  Muller  waxed  enthusi- 
astic. In  fact,  they  did  not  put  on  their 
orders  immediately;  Muller  did.  Finally, 
my  officer  got  our  barber  to  stop  bowing 
— the  duke  wasn't  even  seeing  him — 
and  we  went  into  the  dining-room. 

At  dinner  the  personally  conducted 
conversation  leaped  suddenly  from  church 
history  to  Zeppelining.  It  was  just  after 
one  of  those  earlier  London  raids,  when 
the  great  city  was  practically  defenseless, 
and  the  German  newspapers  had  been  full 
for  several  days  of  accounts  of  the  enor- 
mous damage  and  losses  of  life  achieved 
by  the  raid.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there 
were  some  horrors — not  extensive  but 
intensive  horrors:  women  and  babies  in 
36 


Headquarters       Nights 

several  houses,  and  an  omnibusful  of 
passengers  in  a  by-street,  sickeningly 
mangled  and  murdered. 

The  duke  declared  that  Zeppelining 
was  stupid  and  the  men  who  ordered 
it  fools.  The  table  was  struck  silent. 
A  duke  close  to  the  Kaiser  might  say 
such  a  thing,  but  no  less  a  personage. 
Zeppelining  had  been  declared  wise  and 
good  by  the  General  Staff  and  the  Berlin 
official  publicity  bureau.  It  was  there- 
fore wise  and  good.  So  one  of  the  barons 
ventured  to  remonstrate.  It  was  the 
one  who  had  received  his  order  along 
with  Miiller,  and  in  whom  the  champagne 
had  perhaps  let  some  obscure  natural 
feeling  of  resentment  get  the  better  of  the 
well-learned  feeling  of  proper  gratitude 
for  his  dubious  distinction. 

'But  His  Highness  will  recall,'  said 
the  baron,  'the  military  advantage  of 
Zeppelining:  the  value  of  holding  guns 
and  gunners  in  England  which  might 
otherwise  be  sent  to  the  battle-line,  and 

37 


Headquarters      Nights 

the  blowing  up  of  munition  factories, 
and  the — ah — the  terror  and  the — well, 
the  military  advantage  generally.  One 
must  not  consider  the — ah — other  side 
of  the  matter.  A  few — ah — non-combat- 
ants, perhaps,  but  the  military  advantage, 
that  is  the  sole  criterion.' 

His  Highness  snorted  audibly  and 
visibly. 

'That  is,  of  course,  all  that  one  does 
take  into  consideration.  It  is  precisely 
and  only  because  there  is  no  military 
advantage  in  Zeppelining  that  it  is  stupid 
and  the  men  who  order  it  are  stupid  pigs. 
We  don't  blow  up  any  munition  factories, 
and  for  every  miserable  woman  killed, 
hundreds,  aye,  thousands  of  Englishmen 
rush  into  the  army  to  come  over  to  the 
front  and  fight  us.  We  are  doing  their 
recruiting  for  them. '  He  fixed  the  squirm- 
ing recipient  of  his  yellow  ribbon  with  a 
cold  gray  eye.  We  are  all  only  thinking 
of  the  military  advantage.  What  are  a 
few — oh,  pouf,  why  talk  of  it?  My  dear 
38 


Headquarters      Nights 

baron,  I  am  perhaps  as  much  a  military 
man  as  you'  (this  was  withering  scorn; 
the  baron  was  the  Headquarters  reader 
of  foreign  newspapers!),  'and  I  repeat: 
Zeppelining  is  bad,  and  it  is  bad  simply 
and  entirely  because  it  has  no  military 
advantage.' 

That  ended  Zeppelining  for  the  moment, 
until  unlucky  I — well,  the  very  next 
subject  introduced  was  the  attitude  of 
the  neutral  world,  America  in  particular, 
toward  Germany.  The  newspaper-read- 
ing baron  suddenly  turned  to  me. 

'Why  is  this  universal  hate  of  Ger- 
many?   Why  do  you  Americans  hate  us?' 

It  was  too  soon  after  what  I  had  just 
heard.     I  blurted  out, — 

'For  things  like  the  military  advantage 
of  Zeppelining.' 

My  officer  gave  a  scrape  and  a  lurch; 
something  tipped  over.  Then  he  stared 
— all  of  us  stared — at  the  duke.  His 
Highness  did  not  order  me  to  the  firing 
squad  or  even  to  the  cells.     He  did  noth- 

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Headquarters       Nights 

ing,  said  nothing,  to  show  any  displeas- 
ure. He  looked  steadily  and  thought- 
fully at  me,  and  then  gruffly  indicated 
his  pleasure  that  the  company  should 
rise  from  the  table.  My  officer  recov- 
ered his  color  and  his  equanimity. 

I  believe  that  His  Highness  knew 
that  answer  all  the  time.  But  the  rest 
did  not,  and  they  do  not  understand  it 
now.  *  Military  advantage,'  'military 
expediency' — how  often  have  these 
phrases  blocked  us  of  the  Relief  Com- 
mission in  our  efforts  in  Belgium  and 
North  France!  No  mercy,  no  *wornen- 
and-children'  appeals,  no  hesitation  to 
use  the  torch  and  the  firing  squad,  de- 
portation, and  enslavement.  And  it  is 
all  a  part  of  Professor  von  Flussen's 
philosophy;  the  pale  ascetic  intellec- 
tual and  the  burly,  red-faced  butcher 
meet  on  common  ground  here.  And 
then  they  wonder  why  the  world  comes 
together  to  resist  this  philosophy — and 
this  butchery — to  the  death ! 
40 


Ill 

Late  one  afternoon  we  left  Head- 
quarters to  dine  with  General  von  R. 
down  near  the  Champagne  front,  Mr. 
Hoover,  Chairman  of  the  Commission, 
and  Mr.  White,  of  its  London  office, 
had  come  over  to  Brussels  and  on  to 
Headquarters  for  a  conference  in  con- 
nection with  our  work  in  Northern  France ; 
and  so  we  were  all  to  go  with  my  officer 
and  two  or  three  other  men  of  the  General 
Staff  to  receive  this  special  attention 
from  a  commanding  general  at  the  front. 

We  made  an  imposing  procession  in 
three  big  gray  military  cars  running 
swiftly  to  the  south.  As  the  general's 
chief  of  staff,  who  had  come  to  Head- 
quarters to  escort  us  personally,  spoke 
no  English  and  did  not  like  to  hear 
English  spoken,  he  took  me  alone  with 
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Headquarters      Nights 

him  in  his  car.  He  was  a  taciturn,  crusty 
major,  with  a  thin,  stern  face  and  tight 
lips. 

His  first  remarks  were  certain  direct 
questions  about  conditions  in  London 
and  England.  I  could  reply  only  that, 
if  such  questions  were  asked  me  in 
England  about  Germany  or  German- 
occupied  territory,  I  would  not  answer 
them.  He  did  not  like  it,  but  after  a 
little  bullying  settled  into  moody  silence, 
occasionally  broken  by  curt  remarks  to 
me,  and  brutally  put  instructions  to  his 
soldier  chauffeur.  It  was  evident  that 
he  did  not  like  the  idea  of  his  general's 
showing  this  high  courtesy  to  the  in- 
truding Yankees.  It  was  not  a  pleasant 
excursion  for  any  of  us,  and  yet  it  was  a 
beautiful  two  hours'  ride  over  smooth 
tree-lined  roads — the  trees  are  mostly 
gone  now — through  picturesque  country 
of  wide  outlooks. 

Just  at  dusk  we  climbed  slowly  up  a 
gentle  hill-slope.  As  we  reached  the  flat 
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Headquarters       Nights 

summit  and  sped  along  over  it,  one 
could  see  the  road  stretching  far  ahead, 
a  gently  irregular  white  line  dipping 
out  of  sight  into  a  valley  in  front,  but 
reappearing  on  the  farther  up-slope  and 
running  there  straight  away  into  invisi- 
bility. Just  at  the  horizon,  where  the 
hilltop  met  the  heavens  and  the  road 
disappeared,  the  tower  of  a  little  church 
silhouetted  itself  against  the  darkening 
blue  of  the  evening  sky. 

'This  is  the  road  to  Rheims,*  mut- 
tered my  companion.  'You  can  see  it 
from  that  church. ' 

I  thrilled.  The  road  to  Rheims! 
Rheims  just  there  in  front,  and  a  shell 
bursting  over  it — over  the  Cathedral, 
say — could  be  seen  from  that  little 
church.  I  wanted  to  go  right  on  along 
that  white  line  to  that  hilltop. 

Later  I  really  did  go  there,  and  be- 
yond it  even  to  the  very  verge  of  the 
sad  city  itself.  There  is  an  extraordinary 
little  village  of  cellars — the  houses  above 

43 


Headquarters       Nights 

are  mere  stone-heaps — just  behind  the 
German  trenches  in  front  of  Rheims. 
These  cellars  are  occupied  by  two  hundred 
and  thirty-three  women  and  girls,  sixty- 
seven  children,  and  four  tottering  old 
men,  the  total  remaining  population  of  a 
once  picturesque  and  crowded  village. 
We  wanted  them  to  come  away  and  be 
housed  farther  back  from  the  line.  But 
they  prefer  to  live  *at  home.'  And  so 
we  have  fed  these  women  and  children 
there  two  years.  They  live  in  their 
cellars,  with  the  shells  moaning  back 
and  forth  over  them  whenever  there  is 
'desultory  artillery  firing  before  Rheims.' 
As  we  were  running  swiftly  over  the 
flat  hill-summit  with  the  long  view  in 
front  of  us,  our  driver,  without  being 
instructed — and  cursed — by  the  major, 
suddenly  slowed  the  car,  and  I  noted  the 
major  staring  hard  at  a  soldier's  grave 
by  the  roadside.  There  had  been  hard 
fighting  all  about  here  and  the  graves 
were  numerous  along  the  way.  My 
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Headquarters      Nights 

companion  turned  abruptly  to  me,  with  a 
thumb- jerk  toward  the  grave. 

*He  was  my  best  friend,'  he  said 
gruffly;  and  with  another  jerk  to  the 
front,  he  added,  'And  my  brother  lies 
under  the  shadows  of  that  church- 
tower  there  on  the  hill.' 

I  forgave  him  his  gruff ness. 

Arrived  at  the  general's  headquarters 
in  a  French  industrial  town  now  half  in 
ruins,  we  walked  by  a  stiff  row  of  orderlies 
into  a  spacious  house,  and  were  shown 
by  other  orderlies  and  a  young  lieutenant 
to  an  upstairs  room  to  brush  off  the  white 
chalk-dust  of  the  Champagne  road.  My 
officer  had  remained  below.  Suddenly 
he  came  into  our  room,  excited  and  with  a 
face  of  much  concern.  He  told  us  swiftly 
that  a  translation  of  President  Wilson's 
latest  note,  a  short  and  sharp  one,  had 
just  been  telephoned  to  the  general  from 
Berlin.  And  the  general  and  everybody 
downstairs  were  violently  incensed.  He 
wondered   whether   one   of   us   had    not 

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Headquarters      Nights 

better  get  suddenly  ill,  so  that  we  should 
have  to  go  back  at  once  without  staying 
for  dinner. 

This  seemed  absurd.  We  said  that 
the  general  could  get  ill  and  call  off  the 
dinner  if  he  wanted  to,  but  we  should 
not.  Poor  Graf  W. !  He  had  been 
trained  to  abuse  his  subordinates  and 
cringe  before  his  superiors,  and  it  was 
really  a  horrible  position  for  him;  he 
felt,  in  a  way,  responsible  for  his  Yankees, 
and  he  wanted  the  occasion  to  go  off 
pleasantly.  However,  we  had  not  written 
the  note,  or  done  anything  except  come, 
with  no  anticipations  of  pleasure,  to  eat 
dinner  with  the  general!  And  so  we 
insisted  on  going  down. 

It  was  a  strenuous  meal,  not  because 
of  an  overabundance  of  things  to  eat 
— it  is  a  long  time  now  since  there  has 
been  too  much  to  eat  in  Germany,  even 
among  generals — but  because  of  the 
situation.  The  general  and  his  staff 
were  always  polite,  but  never  more  than 
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Headquarters      Nights 

that.  They  were  perfectly  correct  and 
perfectly  reserved.  We  talked  much 
and  said  little.  The  general  declared  an 
interest  in  'caring  for  the  people.  *  He  was 
trying  to  reestablish  the  industries  of 
the  region,  he  said.  I  had  noted  the 
stacks  of  two  factories  smoking  as  we 
entered  the  town.  Such  sights  in  Belgium 
and  North  France  have  been  unusual  for 
two  years,  and  attract  attention.  I  said 
we  were  very  glad  to  learn  of  his  interest, 
and  asked  what  the  factories  were.  He 
turned  to  the  gentleman  on  his  other  side. 
But  a  less  discerning  young  officer  across 
the  table  said  they  were  making  corrugated 
iron.  This  is  an  article  much  used  in 
and  behind  the  trenches. 

There  is  also  much  cutting  of  trees 
— French  trees — and  sawing  of  lumber 
going  on  in  occupied  France.  Wood 
is  also  much  used  in  the  trenches.  And 
large  herds  of  cattle  are  being  pastured 
in  French  pastures.  They  are  German 
cattle  for  the  soldiers.  The  French  cat- 
47 

4 


Headquarters      Nights 

tie     have     long     ago     been     eaten     by 
them. 

I  suppose  all  this  is  just  war.  But 
when  such  things  are  given  the  color 
before  the  world  of  'restoring  the  indus- 
tries of  the  people,*  the  specific  object 
of  this  restoration  should  be  told.  The 
bald  truth  is  that  Governor  von  His- 
sing's repeated  declarations  of  rehabil- 
itating industries  in  Belgium,  and  the 
similar  statements  of  the  General  Staff 
for  Northern  France,  are  equivocations. 
What  has  been  strongly  attempted  has 
been  a  forced  exploitation  of  the  people 
for  German  military  advantage.  It  has 
been  resisted  by  the  simple  but  brave 
and  patriotic  workingmen  of  the  occupied 
territories  with  a  success  that  seems  in- 
credible in  the  face  of  the  guns  and 
deporting  trains  all  too  familiar  to  them. 
It  is  true,  as  has  been  said  in  criticism  of 
them,  that  the  Belgians  do  not  work. 
They  have  little  work  of  their  own  that  they 
can  do,  and  they  will  not  work  for  the 
48 


Headquarters      Nights 

Germans.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons  for 
the  deportations,  which  have  been,  by 
the  way,  one  of  the  greatest  of  German 
blunders — and  brutalities — in  this  war. 
But  I  must  not  write  of  Belgium  now; 
Headquarters  was  in  Northern  France. 

It  was  not  all  sticking  at  Headquar- 
ters. I  traveled — always  with  my  offi- 
cer, of  course — up  and  down  and 
across  and  back  over  all  of  occupied 
France;  from  Lille  to  Longwy,  from 
Coucy-le-Chiteau  to  Charleville.  For 
the  purposes  of  our  ravitaillement  the 
occupied  French  territory  is  divided 
into  six  districts.  These  corresponded 
with  no  political  subdivisions  of  the 
country,  as  departements  and  arrofidisse- 
ments,  but  were  determined  chiefly  by 
the  original  disposition  of  the  German 
armies,  each  of  which,  having  a  certain 
degree  of  autonomy  as  regards  the  region 
occupied  by  it,  objected  to  any  movement 
of  French  feeding  committees  and  our  own 
49 


Headquarters      Nights 

American  Commission  representatives 
across  the  borders  of  its  own  region. 
We  had,  therefore,  six  district  ravitaille- 
ment  centres,  or  headquarters,  at  each  of 
which  were  stationed  one  or  two  of  our 
representatives,  who  moved  about  more 
or  less  freely  in  his  district,  each  with  a 
specially  detailed  German  officer  of  his 
own — 'nurses,'  we  called  them.  It  was 
my  privilege  and  duty  as  chief  repre- 
sentative, and  my  officer's  as  chief  of 
the  officer  group,  to  visit  occasionally 
each  of  the  districts. 

We  traveled  by  military  motor,  my 
officer  and  I  in  the  tonneau,  and  a  sol- 
dier chauffeur  and  an  orderly  in  the 
driver's  seat,  each  of  them  with  a  loaded 
Mauser  held  erect  in  clamps  by  his 
side.  In  each  side-flap  pocket  of  the 
tonneau  was  a  loaded  Browning.  We 
were  never  shot  at,  nor  did  we  ever 
shoot  at  anybody,  but  the  armament 
gave  the  proper  military  tone  to  our 
equipage.  We  ran  frightfully  fast,  and 
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Headquarters      Nights 

I  always  had  the  uneasy  feeling  that  I 
should  find  my  finish  in  North  France, 
not  in  a  dramatic  erasure  by  a  stray 
shell  or  casual  bomb  from  overhead, 
but  in  a  commonplace  motor  smash-up. 
As  it  came  out,  the  only  casualties 
attending  our  5000  or  more  kilometres 
of  mad  running  were  among  the  few 
remaining  half-fed  chickens  of  the  French 
villagers.  We  did  once  rather  narrowly 
miss  being  run  over  by  the  Crown  Prince, 
who  sat  on  the  front  seat  with  an  orderly, 
and  drove  his  own  car  like  a  hurricane. 
As  he  swerved  slightly  to  miss  us,  he 
intrusted  his  life — and  ours — to  one  of 
his  hands,  while  with  the  other  he  gave  us 
a  d6bonnaire  salute. 

This  extraordinary  touring  of  North 
France  came  finally  to  get  strongly  on 
my  nerves.  It  is  such  a  sad  land;  such 
a  wreck  of  half-destroyed  villages  and 
crumbled  farm-houses,  of  stripped  wood- 
land and  neglected  fields.  And  the 
people:  all  women  and  children  and  old 
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Headquarters       Nights 

and  infirm  men!  And  the  meagerness  of 
the  food-supply,  despite  the  best  we  could 
do!  We  meant  much  to  these  people, 
we  eight  or  ten  Americans  moving  about 
among  them;  at  least,  they  gave  us  un- 
mistakably to  understand  that  we  did. 
We  represented  the  sympathy  and  en- 
deavor of  a  great  nation  far  away.  Cut 
off  as  these  imprisoned  French  are  from 
all  communication  with  their  fighting 
men  across  the  terrible  trench-lines;  cut 
off  even  from  communication  with  each 
other,  if  only  a  few  miles  apart,  we 
exemplified  the  freedom  that  still  existed 
somewhere,  and  the  hope  of  the  freedom 
to  come  to  them  again.  And  we  meant, 
too,  for  them,  the  holding  back  of  the 
spectre  of  actual  starvation. 

The  sights  and  the  incidents  of  those 
trips  are  too  harrowing  to  exploit.  They 
are  untellable,  intimate  memories  for  us, 
but  they  went  far  in  making  us  con- 
vinced and  bitter  believers  that  the  only 
comprehensible  answer  to  the  German 
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Headquarters      Nights 

philosophy  of  '  raison  d'Etat,'  and  'military 
exigency/  to  these  ravages  of  non-com- 
batant countryside  and  village,  is  an 
answer  of  force.  Not  that  we  wish  to  do 
to  them  what  they  have  done  to  others, 
but  to  prevent  them  by  force  from  ever 
doing  that  again. 

I  could  understand  why  the  villages 
along  the  Meuse  were  shot  to  pieces; 
there  was  real  fighting  there — at  least 
in  some  of  them.  And  there  were  some 
more  whose  names  I  recalled  as  asso- 
ciated with  the  desperate  retreating 
struggles  of  the  overwhelmed  French 
and  British.  But  there  are  many,  many 
others  in  which  there  was  no  fighting, 
but  just  destroying.  They  have  not 
been  enumerated  as  have  the  Belgian 
towns;  they  have  no  sad  fame  in  the 
ears  of  the  world:  they  are  just  name- 
less scores  of  illustrations  and  results  of 
the  German  conception  of  the  struggle 
for  existence  as  a  contributory  factor 
in  the  evolution  of  human  kind. 

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Headquarters      Nights 

There  is,  I  suppose,  a  slight  military 
advantage  in  so  maltreating  and  terri- 
fying a  conquered  land  that  only  a  few- 
elderly  Landsturmers,  scattered  here 
and  there  over  it,  are  sufficient  as  an 
army  of  occupation.  The  rest  of  the 
Landsturmers  can  be  used  in  the  trenches. 
But  it  is  a  terrible  price — of  something — 
to  pay  for  this  alleged  military  advantage. 

I  used  to  ask  my  officer  about  these 
wrecked  villages  as  we  ran  through  them, 
or  stopped  to  inspect  a  local  distributing 
centre,  or  watch  a  soup-line,  or  get  a 
report,  and  always  a  piteous  request, 
from  a  feeding  committee.  He  had  a 
stereotyped  reply:  'Punishment.* 

Tunishment  for  what?' 

Tor  a  civilian's  shooting  at  a  soldier; 
or  the  village's  harboring  a  spy;  or  a 
failure  to  meet  a  requisition ;  or  something 
or  other.' 

He  never  knew  exactly;  nobody  ever 
knew  exactly;   and   I   do  not  know  ex- 
actly.    Not  even  with  all  the  explana- 
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Headquarters       Nights 

tion  from  the  captain-professor,  who 
explained  it  on  a  basis  of  biological 
philosophy.  Nor  with  the  explanation 
of  the  non-philosophizing  fighters,  who 
simply  said  that  it  was  necessary  as  a 
military  advantage.  Nor  with  the  ex- 
planation of  my  officer,  who,  when  I 
continued  to  press  him,  would  make  an 
ugly  screwing  gesture  with  closed  fist, 
which  seemed  to  mean,  *Just  do  it  to 
them!' 

I  went  into  Northern  France  and  Bel- 
gium to  act  as  a  neutral,  and  I  did  act 
as  a  neutral  all  the  time  I  was  there.  If 
I  learned  there  anything  of  military 
value  which  could  be  used  against  the 
Germans  I  shall  not  reveal  it.  But  I 
came  out  no  neutral.  Also  I  went  in  an 
ardent  hater  of  war  and  I  came  out  a 
more  ardent  one.  I  have  seen  that  side 
of  the  horror  and  waste  and  outrage  of 
war  which  is  worse  than  the  side  re- 
vealed on  the  battlefield.  How  I  hope 
for  the  end  of  all  war ! 
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Headquarters       Nights 

But  I  have  come  out  believing  that 
that  cannot  come  until  any  people  which 
has  dedicated  itself  to  the  philosophy 
and  practice  of  war  as  a  means  of  human 
advancement  is  put  into  a  position  of 
impotence  to  indulge  its  belief  at  will. 
My  conviction  is  that  Germany  is  such  a 
people,  and  that  it  can  be  put  into  this 
position  only  by  the  result  of  war  itself. 
It  knows  no  other  argument  and  it  will 
accept  no  other  decision. 


56 


Von  Hissing's  Headquarters 


I 

Twenty  years  ago  the  Samoan  Is- 
lands belonged  to  England,  Germany, 
and  the  United  States.  The  Gordian 
knot  of  trouble  inevitably  tied  by  such 
a  handling  of  Samoan  affairs  had  its  cut- 
ting hastened  by  the  famous  hurricane  of 
1889,  which  piled  up  some  men-of-war  of 
the  ruling  nations  on  the  vicious  coral 
reefs  of  Apia  harbor,  and  drove  others  in 
safety  out  to  sea. 

This  terrible  common  experience  made 
temporary  friends  of  the  struggling  Eng- 
lish, German,  and  American  sailors  and 
Samoan  boatmen,  who  had  all  been  mu- 
tual enemies.  It  also  helped  to  hasten  the 
arrangement  by  which  England  exchanged 
her  interests  in  Samoa  for  another  South 
Sea  quid  pro  quo,  and  the  four  principal 
islands  were  divided  between  Germany 
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Headquarters      Nights 

and  America,  two  to  each.  The  Ger- 
mans got  Savaii  with  its  volcano  and 
Upolu  with  its  cocoanut  groves,  while  we 
got  beautiful  Tutuila  with  its  harbor  and 
little  Manua  without  much  of  anything. 

The  money  in  use  in  Upolu,  and  in  its 
chief  town,  Apia,  had  been,  for  years, 
English  money,  its  lesser  pieces  known 
to  the  natives  as  'shillins'  (accent  on  the 
second  syllable),  *seese-a-pennies,'  and 
*kolu-pennies,'  kolu  being  the  native 
word  for  three.  When  the  Germans  took 
full  possession  of  Upolu,  they,  of  course, 
introduced  their  own  currency.  But  the 
natives  persisted  in  calling  a  silver  mark 
a  'shillin,'  and  a  fifty-pfennig  piece  a 
*seese-a-penny.*  A  mark  looked  like  a 
shilling  and  it  bought  no  more  or  less  of 
anything  than  a  shilling;  the  same  with 
fifty-pfennigs  and  six-pence.  Why  new 
names,  then? 

But  though  the  natives  persisted,  the 
Germans  insisted.  The  Governor  of  Ger- 
man Samoa — now  head  of  a  great  de- 
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Headquarters       Nights 

partment  of  the  Imperial  German  Gov- 
ernment at  Berlin — gave  much  time  and 
energy  to  trying  to  change  'shillin*  to 
mark.  But  he  never  succeeded.  So  with 
a  host  of  other  trivial  things.  He  could 
tell  a  German  to  say  this  for  that,  or  do 
that  for  this,  and  it  was  said  and  done; 
why  not  a  Samoan?  He  could  not  under- 
stand it.  Apparently  no  German  can 
understand  it. 

So  it  has  been  In  all  the  other  one- 
time German  colonies.  And  so  It  has 
been  in  Belgium. 

Governor-General  von  Bissing  died 
from  too  much  telling  the  Belgians  to 
do  things — some  important,  many  triv- 
ial— and  too  much  trying  to  make  them 
do  them.  He  fumed  and  worried  and  suf- 
fered because  they  would  not  behave 
properly.  Why  would  they  not?  Why 
should  not  Belgians  be  managed  as  Ger- 
mans are  managed?  Why  would  they 
not?  He  died  unenlightened.  He  had  a 
large  staff  of  subordinates:    department 

6j 


Headquarters       Nights 

heads,  provincial  governors,  and  what 
not.  None  of  them  enlightened  him. 
None  of  them  could  enlighten  him.  I 
almost  believe  that  no  German  could. 

Von  Bissing  is  dead  and  Von  Falken- 
hausen  has  stepped  into  his  shoes,  and 
is  going  on  trying  to  rule  Belgium  in  the 
same  way.  But  he  will  succeed  no  bet- 
ter. He  will  never  know  the  Belgians, 
as  Solf  did  not  know  the  Samoans,  and 
the  statesmen  and  rulers  of  Germany  do 
not  know  the  English,  or  the  French,  or 
the  Americans.  How  often  have  I  been 
asked,  angrily,  pathetically,  always  in- 
sistently, 'Why  do  you  Americans  do  as 
you  do?    Germans  would  not.' 

At  first  I  tried  to  explain.  But  they 
could  not  understand.  Some  few  under- 
stood that  they  did  not  understand,  but 
even  they  could  not  understand  why  they 
did  not,  why  they  could  not.  I  say  some 
few ;  really  I  remember  only  one.  He  was 
a  business  man  of  proved  capacity.  For 
the  moment,  he  was  in  an  officer's  uni- 
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Headquarters      Nights 

form  and  head  of  an  important  depart- 
ment of  Von  Bissing's  government;  a 
man  of  good  mind,  and  university- trained. 
Most  of  the  German  ojfficers  and  officials 
are  men  of  good  mind  and  university- 
trained. 

He  said,  *You  say  we  can't  understand 
other  people,  their  minds,  their  points  of 
view,  their  feelings.  Look  at  us  in  South 
America.  Our  traders  were  getting  the 
best  of  the  English  traders  and  your  own 
keen  Yankee  traders.  We  understood 
better  than  you  the  wants  and  business 
methods  of  the  South  Americans.  We 
made  the  goods  the  way  they  wanted 
them  made;  we  packed  them  the  way 
they  wanted  them  packed ;  we  gave  them 
credit  in  the  way  they  preferred  to 
have  it.  We  were  more  adaptable  than 
either  you  or  the  British.  But — yes,  it  is 
true,  our  statesmen  do  not  understand 
your  statesmen  or  your  people ;  our  diplo- 
mats do  not  understand  the  people  to 
whom  we  send  them.  Everything  you 
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Headquarters      Nights 

do  surprises  them,  disappoints  them,  dis- 
mays them.  And  we  lose  by  it.  We  suffer 
by  it.     What  is  the  reason?' 

But  he  was  the  only  one  I  remember 
out  of  the  many  I  talked  with  who  un- 
derstood that  they  did  not  understand. 
And  he  himself  did  not  really  understand 
that  he  did  not  understand  the  Belgians 
whom  he  was  helping  to  govern!  He 
thought  they  were  just  insolent  liars  and 
rebels!  Yes,  because  they  did  not  do, 
if  they  could  help  it  at  all,  whatever  and 
everything  the  Germans  ordered  them  to 
do,  they  were  'rebels.* 

Had  not  the  German  army  beaten  their 
army  and  occupied  their  land?  Well, 
then,  were  they  not  rebels  and  traitors  if 
they  did  not  do  things  that  the  Germans 
told  them  to  do,  and  did  things  that  they 
were  told  not  to  do?  Could  they  not 
learn  to  behave  properly  after  having  to 
have  thousands  of  their  civilian  citizens 
and  their  women  and  children  shot  in 
groups  at  the  beginning,  and  hundreds 
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Headquarters      Nights 

shot  scatteringly  along  through  the  weary- 
ing months,  and  other  hundreds  sent  to 
prison  in  Germany? 

^Idiots  and  ingrates,  these  Belgians.* 
I  use  the  word  actually  as  used  to  me: 
ingrates.  For  had  not  His  Excellency, 
Governor-General  von  Bissing,  expressed 
in  a  score  or  more  of  proclamations  his 
own  interest  and  the  interest  of  the  Im- 
perial German  Government  in  the  welfare 
of  the  people?  Had  His  Excellency  not 
actively  displayed  this  interest  by  tangi- 
ble things  done  for  their  advantage? 

I  studied  earnestly  for  a  moment,  but 
I  had  to  ask  for  help.  What  things,  for 
example?'     I  asked. 

Weir — he  studied  too  for  a  moment; 
then  triumphantly,  Well,  for  example, 
the  reestablishment  of  the  Flemish  uni- 
versity at  Ghent.  You  ought  to  remem- 
ber that,  for  I  heard  His  Excellency  tell 
you  that  you  could  lecture  there.' 

I  remember  that  saturnine  jest.  Gen- 
eral von  Bissing  had  reestablished  the 
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Headquarters       Nights 

old  Flemish  university  at  Ghent  just  as 
General  von  Beseler  reestablished  the  old 
Polish  university  at  Warsaw — recently 
closed,  by  the  way.  In  Poland  this  was 
a  slap  at  Russophil  Poles;  in  Belgium,  a 
slap  at  the  ruling  Walloons.  Von  Hissing 
had  arranged  for  fifty  professors,  some 
German,  some  Dutch,  and  a  few  renegade 
and  bribable  Flemish,  to  accept  chairs  at 
Ghent.  The  bribe  for  these  men  was  a 
good  immediate  salary  and  a  pension  for 
life  after  cessation — for  cause — of  teach- 
ing. 

That  cessation  will  come  the  min- 
ute that  Belgium  is  free  again,  and  the 
cause  will  be  a  swift  flight  from  the  coun- 
try. For  not  one  of  these  renegade  Flem- 
ish professors  can  live  in  Belgium  after 
the  Germans  go  out,  nor  even  anywhere 
within  reach  of  Belgian  vengeance.  They- 
will  urgently  need  their  pensions. 

With  a  grand  flourish — but  an  all- 
German  flourish — the  reestablished  Flem- 
ish university  at  Ghent  opened  with  fifty 

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Headquarters      Nights 

professors — and  forty  students!  These 
students  will  need  pensions,  too. 

My  companion's  remark  about  the 
Governor-General's  offer  to  let  me  lec- 
ture at  Ghent  had  reference  to  a  grim 
jest  on  the  part  of  His  Excellency.  I  had 
acted  for  a  few  months  in  191 5  as  the 
Relief  Commission's  director  in  Brussels, 
on  leave  from  my  university  in  California, 
but  had  had  to  return  for  the  second  half 
of  the  college  year.  This  finished,  I  went 
back,  at  Mr.  Hoover's  request,  to  take 
up  the  directorship  again.  Soon  after  my 
arrival  in  Brussels,  I  made  my  call  of 
formality  on  Von  Bissing,  in  company  with 
the  German  head  of  the  department 
having  chief  cognizance  of  our  relief 
work. 

The  Governor-General  received  me  not 
unkindly,  in  his  stiffly  pleasant  manner, 
and  said  he  hoped  I  would  not  have  to 
leave  again  while  the  relief  work  went 
on,  adding  that,  if  I  felt  once  more  the 
need  of  giving  some  university  lectures, 
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Headquarters      Nights 

I  might  give  a  course  in  the  new  uni- 
versity at  Ghent! 

It  was  meant  as  a  jest,  but,  as  he  knew 
as  well  as  I  did  what  fate  was  in  reserve 
for  the  lecturers  in  his  new  university,  it 
had  a  grimness  that  made  his  smile,  under 
the  stiff  clipped  mustache,  no  less  awry 
than  mine.  I  had  a  horrible  temptation, 
fortunately  resisted,  to  return  jest  for  jest 
by  asking  the  figure  of  my  pension. 

All  this  great  and  affectionate  interest 
in  matters  and  people  Flemish,  exhibited 
by  General  von  Bissing  and  his  staff,  and 
by  the  German  Chancellor  and  his  Berlin 
associates,  and  now  by  Von  Schaibele, 
the  new  special  sub-governor  for  Flemish 
Belgium,  is  so  simple  and  obvious  in  its 
reason  and  intent  that  it  is  nothing  short 
of  astounding  that  any  Germans,  '  of  good 
mind  and  university- trained,*  can,  for  a 
moment,  believe  that  it  could  fool  any 
one,  least  of  all  the  people  most  imme- 
diately concerned.  The  naivete  of  the 
whole   performance    is   simply   pathetic. 

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Headquarters      Nights 

To  hire  a  few  cheap  Flemings  to  come  to 
Berlin  and  do  a  stage  chat  with  the  chan- 
cellor, and  have  their  pictures  taken  in  a 
top-hatted  group  with  him,  and  then  ex- 
pect to  palm  off  this  infantile  perform- 
ance as  evidence  of  German  and  Flemish- 
Belgian    rapprochement,    is    to    betray    a 
simplicity  that  is  past  conception.    Copies 
of  that  group  photograph,  as  published 
in  Die  Woche,  are  being  religiously  kept 
by    hundreds    of    Belgians    as    evidence, 
when  the  time  comes,  on  which  to  hang 
these  paid   Flemish   renegades.      I   hope 
that  they,  like  the  professors,  have  been 
pensioned,  and  have  reserved  future  lodg- 
ings in  the  heart  of  Germany.    They  will 
be  safe  nowhere  else — perhaps  not  there. 
That  is  the  simple,  naive  side  of  Ger- 
man rule.    There  is  another  and  fearfully 
contrasting  side.     It  is  the  side  of  blood 
and   iron.      And    Belgium   has   had    full 
measure  of  laughable  and  tragic  experi- 
ence of  both  sides.     Her  keen  wits  have 
often  bested  the  rule  of  naivete — by  pay- 
69 


Headquarters      Nights 

ing  a  fine;  her  bravest  hearts  have  often 
bested  the  rule  of  brutality — by  paying 
their  lives.  No  week  has  passed  in  all  the 
many  since  Germany  violated  her  own 
honor,  and  that  of  Belgium,  three  years 
ago,  without  a  new  Verordnung  placarded 
on  the  hoardings,  prescribing  some  trivial 
doing  or  not  doing, — ^which  meant  smiles 
and  shrugs  and  quick  little  schemes  of 
avoidance  to  the  reading  Belgians;  nor 
has  a  week  passed  without  some  grim 
court-martial  running  its  fated  course  of 
judicial  travesty — ^which  meant  imprison- 
ment or  death  to  some  devoted  woman 
or  brave  man  of  Belgium. 

Some  woman  or  some  man,  do  I  say? 
Some  tens  or  twenties  of  women  and  men, 
I  ought  to  say.  The  trials  and  condem- 
nations at  Hasselt  alone  are  of  scores  at 
a  time. 


70 


II 

The  German  government  of  Belgium 
is  three  fourths  strictly  military  and  one 
fourth  quasi-civil.  There  is  a  Civil-Ver- 
waltung,  or  department  of  civil  govern- 
ment; a  Politische  Ahteilungj  or  Apolitical* 
department,  having  to  do  with  the  dip- 
lomatic and  general  political  relation  of 
the  government  to  the  Belgian  people 
generally,  and  the  Belgian  and  American 
relief  organizations  specially;  a  Bank- 
Abteilung,  whose  most  conspicuous  activi- 
ties have  had  relation  to  the  forced  re- 
moval of  450,000,000  marks  from  the 
vaults  of  two  great  Belgian  banks  to 
those  of  the  Reichsbank  in  Berlin,  and 
the  putting  of  proper  pressure  on  all  the 
Belgian  banks  to  produce  the  huge 
monthly  indemnity,  first  of  forty  million 
francs,  then  fifty,  and  now  sixty,  that  is 
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Headquarters       Nights 

collected  from  Belgium  by  Germany;  a 
Press- Abteilung,  presided  over  by  a  capa- 
ble sculptor,  which  looks  after  the  edit- 
ing of  all  the  Belgian  newspapers — except 
La  Libre  Belgique! — a  Vermittlungsstelle,  or 
special  bureau  of  the  political  depart- 
ment, through  which  all  negotiations  of 
the  Belgian  Comite  National  and  the 
American  Commission  with  the  German 
government,  either  in  Brussels  or  Berlin, 
are  taken  up;  a  Central  Harvest  Com- 
mission {Central  Ernte  Kommission) ,  with 
special  charge  of  the  native  food-crops 
and  live  stock  (horses  excepted) ;  and  last, 
but  very  far  from  least,  the  Military  *  In- 
tendance,'  which  represents  the  army's 
interests  and  control. 

In  addition  to  these  various  chief  de- 
partments— and  I  may  have  overlooked 
one  or  two;  it  does  not  matter — there  is 
a  series  of  bureaus  or  organizations  of 
lesser  rank,  called  Centrale,  which  take 
special  cognizance  and  charge  of  different 
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Headquarters      Nights 

kinds  of  local  foodstuffs  and  related  com- 
modities. 

The  Central  Harvest  Commission 
ought,  perhaps,  more  properly  to  be 
listed  as  the  first  and  most  important  of 
this  group,  rather  than  among  the  chief 
departments  as  noted  above.  It  is  com- 
posed of  five  German  officials  representing, 
respectively,  the  Governor-General  him- 
self, the  civil  department,  the  bank  de- 
partment, the  political  department,  and 
the  military  department,  and  a  Belgian 
representing  the  Comite  National,  and  an 
American  representing  the  Relief  Com- 
mission. The  Belgian  and  American 
members  were  tolerated  rather  than  wel- 
comed, and  their  voices,  although  heard, 
rarely  carried  conviction  to  the  already 
unanimously  convinced  German  members. 
They  had,  however,  full  voting  privilege, 
but  the  minutes  of  the  bi-monthly  meet- 
ings— solemn,  formal  affairs  with  an  oc- 
casional relieving  glimpse  of  uncovered 
feeling  and  humanness — record  a  monot- 
73 


Headquarters      Nights 

onous  list  of  motions  carried  by  five  voices 
to  two,  and  other  motions  lost  by  two  to 
five! 

There  are,  in  addition  to  the  principal 
Harvest  Commission,  a  barley  central; 
an  oats  central,  wholly  in  military  hands; 
a  sugar  central;  a  general  fats  and  oils 
central,  with  a  special  butter  central;  a 
vegetables  central,  with  special  potato 
and  chicory  centrals;  a  brandy  central, 
for  the  controlling  and  taxing  of  all  alco- 
holic production,  this  alcohol  coming 
chiefly  from  the  yeast  factories;  and, 
finally,  a  coal  central,  which,  oddly 
enough,  controls  the  fertilizers  as  well  as 
coal. 

I  may  also  have  overlooked  a  central 
or  two;  but,  again,  it  doesn't  matter. 
There  were  enough,  if  not  too  many; 
enough,  that  is,  to  give  a  very  plausible 
seeming  of  what  one  expects  from  Ger- 
man organization,  namely,  careful  and 
meticulous  specialization  and  subdivision 
of  labor,  responsibility,  and  authority,  but 
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Headquarters      Nights 

all  tied  together  and  subject  to  the  supe- 
rior understanding  and  direction. 

At  a  distance,  the  German  government 
of  Belgium  seems  admirably  organized 
and  even  well  managed.  At  close  rangB, 
especially  at  the  close  range  of  personal 
contact  and  experience,  it  reveals  itself 
as  absurdly  over-organized  and  ineffi- 
ciently managed.  The  German  govern- 
ment of  Belgium  has  proved  itself  incapa- 
ble, except  in  those  matters  where  results 
were  got  by  sheer  brutal  force  alone — and 
in  these  the  force  has  been  too  often  used 
blindly  as  well  as  brutally — and  has  never 
satisfied  the  Germans  themselves,  either 
in  Belgium  or  in  Berlin.  This  is  a  state- 
ment that  I  can  make  with  confidence 
and  without  breach  of  confidence.  For  it 
is  well  known  in  Holland,  which  sees  and 
knows  by  one  means  or  another  practi- 
cally all  that  goes  on  in  Belgium  and 
Germany. 

Governor-General  von  Bissing  wished 
to  gain  a  certain  measure  of  Belgian  ap- 
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Headquarters      Nights 

proval  of  his  administration  of  the  coun- 
try. His  first  approval,  naturally,  should 
come  from  Berlin;  his  second,  from  Ger- 
many; his  third,  if  there  could  be  any- 
thing for  Belgians  to  approve  of  what 
must  first  be  commended  by  Berlin  and 
Germany,  was  to  come  from  Belgium. 
And  he  really  wanted  this  approval. 

Hopeless  cynics  might  explain  his  de- 
sire simply  as  dictated  by  pure  personal 
selfishness  and  .ambition.  A  successful 
civil  administration  should  receive  some 
measure  of  approval  from  the  adminis- 
terecf.  Von  Bissing's  government  was  al- 
ways a  quasi-civil  government.  He  would 
commend  himself  and  his  administration 
to  his  over-lords  if  things  went  fairly 
quietly  in  Belgium.  But  he  would  not  if 
Berlin's  already  fatigued  ears  had  to  be 
assaulted  by  the  disquieting  rattle  of  ma- 
chine-guns in  the  streets  of  Brussels  and 
Antwerp,  and  the  screams,  groans,  and 
last  sobbing  coughs  of  the  dying  Bruxellois 
and  Anversois.  The  world  seemed  in- 
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Headquarters      Nights 

clined  to  give  a  too  attentive  ear  to  noises 
from  Belgium,  and  Berlin^s  own  ears, 
usually  only  too  deaf  to  the  cries  of  the 
tortured,  had  become,  by  virtue  of  this 
fact,  a  little  sensitive  also  to  sounds  from 
Brussels.  It  is  a  popular  belief  that  Ber- 
lin cares  not  a  rap  for  the  world  outside. 
But  this  is  not  true.  She  does  care,  and 
does  not  at  all  relish  being  so  continually 
and  distressfully  'misunderstood.*  What 
is  true  is  that  it  is  only  with  the  utmost 
difficulty,  and  only  rarely,  that  Berlin  can 
understand  what  the  reaction  of  the 
world  outside  is  going  to  be  to  German 
behavior.  I  believe  that  it  is  chiefly  this 
limitation  that  is  leading  Germany  to 
defeat  and  near-destruction. 

But  I  am  not  a  hopeless  cynic — to  get 
back  to  the  matter  of  General  von  Bis- 
sing's  rather  pathetic  desire  for  Belgian 
approval.  And  I  think  that  the  past 
governor's  wish  was  based  partly  on  less 
questionable  grounds  than  pure  selfish- 
ness. He  had  in  some  degree  a  feeling  of 
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Headquarters      Nights 

personal  responsibility  for  the  five  million 
or  more  human  bodies  and  souls,  nameless 
and  hardly  distinguishable  to  him,  with 
social  traditions  and  natural  inheritance 
utterly  uncomprehended  by  him,  which 
had,  by  the  inexplicable  hazards  of  hu- 
man fate,  been  thrust,  willy-nilly,  into 
his  hands.  It  would  be  a  bit  too  super- 
mannish  not  to  feel  a  little  anxious,  for 
the  people's  own  sake,  about  the  fate  of 
individuals  in  such  a  mass  of  people, 
hanging  ever  on  the  verge  of  starvation 
and  kept  from  literal  destruction  only  by 
the  interference  of  an  incomprehensible 
foreign  neutral  organization. 

But,  some  way,  for  whatever  Governor 
von  Bissing  was  able  to  do,  there  was  not 
approval  enough  to  go  around.  After 
Berlin  and  Germany  had  approved,  there 
was  never  any  to  come  from  Belgium. 
In  the  face  of  what  he  did,  or  allowed  to 
be  done,  how  in  the  name  of  humanity,  of 
honor,  and  of  what  there  is  of  God  in 
man,  could  there  be? 
78 


Headquarters      Nights 

And  so  the  Germans  in  Belgium  have 
been  an  ostracized  people.  The  Belgians 
on  the  streets  look  another  way  as  they 
pass  the  spurred,  field-gray  officers.  The 
German  soldiers  have  learned  to  ride  on 
the  platforms  of  the  tramcars;  it  is  less 
chilling  there  than  inside.  The  few  open 
hotels  and  shops  have  become  differen- 
tiated into  places  for  Germans  and  places 
for  Belgians.  It  is  an  odd  victory  that 
these  conquered  people  win  over  their 
conquerors  every  day. 

For  the  Germans  feel  it.  They  have 
wanted  friendly  civil  treatment  from  the 
Belgians;  they  have  tried  in  their  un- 
comprehending, unsympathetic,  stiffly 
patronizing,  semi-contemptuous  way  to 
get  it,  and  they  have  expected  it.  Indeed, 
it  was  more  than  civility,  it  was  deference 
that  they  first  expected — in  parts  of  oc- 
cupied France  the  people  have  to  salute 
the  German  officers  or  get  shot — but 
when  the  deference  was  seen  to  be  hope- 
less, they  expected  civility. 
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Headquarters       Nights 

Well,  they  have  not  got  it;  they  have 
not  had  it.  And  this  complete  withhold- 
ing of  Belgian  approval  of  the  German 
administration,  and  the  complete  lack  of 
any  personal  rapprochement  between  Ger- 
man officers  and  officials  and  Belgians 
during  the  long  period  of  enforced  rela- 
tionship and  companionship,  is,  to  me, 
vivid  evidence  of  two  things:  Belgian 
spirit,  and  German  maladministration 
and  utter  lack  of  human  consideration  of 
the  people  and  persons  they  are  ruling 
and  professing  to  be  trying  to  placate, 
befriend,  and  elevate.  For  the  Belgians 
are  no  more  than  human,  and  human  con- 
sideration w^ould  inevitably  have  had  its 
usual  effect  in  some  visible  measure. 

This  condition  is  also  a  sufficient  proof, 
if  the  world  needs  further  proof,  of  the 
utter  inability  of  the  Germans  to  help  the 
world  in  its  efforts  to  humanize  and  so- 
cialize and  lift  up  its  peoples.  Even  were 
German  KuUur  that  most  desirable  thing 
that  the  German  intellectuals  have  said 
80 


Headquarters      Nights 

it  is — and  that  most  of  us  are  convinced 
it  is  not — the  Germans  are  utterly  un- 
able to  make  it  over  to  any  other  people. 
The  Ninety-Three  Intellectuals  were 
quite  sure  that  Germany  could  spread 
and  bestow  its  Kultur  on  the  backward 
nations  of  the  earth  by  conquering  them 
by  arms.  But  Kultur  cannot  be  imposed 
on  a  people,  even  though  its  rule  can. 
The  Belgians  are  ruled  by  German  Kultur ^ 
but  they  are  not  penetrated  by  it. 

From  the  depths  of  their  bleeding 
hearts  they  execrate  it.  They  have 
seen  what  it  does  to  a  people — to  two 
peoples,  the  Germans  and  themselves. 
It  makes  brutes  and  martyrs:  brutes  of 
its  possessors,  martyrs  of  those  who 
come  in  contact  with  its  possessors. 
German  Kultur  stifles  the  good  in  man 
for  the  good  of  a  man-made  Juggernaut 
called  the  State. 

Whatever  headway  any  German 
singly  might  have  been  able  to  make  in 
gaining    the    tolerance    or    friendship    of 

8i 


Headquarters      Nights 

the  Belgians — and  there  have  been  and 
are  to-day  individual  Germans  in  Bel- 
gium of  a  certain  warmth  of  heart  and 
human  sympathy — this  man,  as  member 
of  the  German  administrative  organiza- 
tion in  Belgium,  was  no  longer  'any  Ger- 
man singly,*  but  a  nameless,  individual- 
less,  rigid  little  cog  on  one  of  the  myriad 
wheels  of  the  Great  German  Machine. 
He  could  move  only  as  his  wheel  moved, 
which  in  turn  moved — or  should  move — 
only  in  perfect  relation  to  the  moving  of 
the  other  wheels. 

This  'any  German  singly'  gave  up,  in 
all  matters  in  which  he  acted  as  a  part  of 
the  German  administration,  all  of  the 
thinking,  all  of  the  feeling,  all  of  the  con- 
science which  might  be  characteristic  of 
him  as  an  individual,  a  free  man,  a  sep- 
arate soul  made  sacred  by  the  touch  of 
the  Creator.  And  he  did  this  to  accept 
the  control  and  standards  of  an  imper- 
sonal, intangible,  inhuman,  great  cold 
fabric  made  of  logic  and  casuistry  and 
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Headquarters      Nights 

utter,  utter  cruelty,  called  the  State — or 
often,  for  purposes  of  deception,  the 
Fatherland.  There  is  fatherland  in  Ger- 
many, but  it  is  not  the  German  State.  It 
is  German  soil  and  German  ancestry,  but 
not  the  horrible,  depersonalized,  super- 
organic  state  machine,  built  and  managed 
by  a  few  ego-maniacs  of  incredible  selfish- 
ness and  of  utter  callousness  to  the  suffer- 
ings, bodily  and  mental,  of  their  own  as 
well  as  any  other  people  in  their  range  of 
contact. 

But  this  machine  is  a  Frankenstein  that 
will  turn  on  its  own  creators  and  work 
their  destruction,  together  with  its  own. 
Such  sacrifice  and  stultification  of  human 
personality  as  national  control  by  such  a 
machine  requires,  can  have  no  perma- 
nence in  a  world  moving  certainly,  even  if 
hesitatingly  and  deviously,  toward  indi- 
vidualism and  the  recognition  of  personal 
values. 


83 


Ill 

The  experience  of  our  Relief  Commis- 
sion with  this  machine  has  been  wearing. 
It  has  also  been  illuminating.  For  it  has 
resulted  in  the  conversion  of  an  idealistic 
group  of  young  Americans  of  open  mind 
and  fairly  neutral  original  attitude,  into  a 
band  of  convinced  men,  most  of  whom, 
since  their  forced  retirement  from  Bel- 
gium, have  ranged  themselves  among 
four  armies  devoted  to  the  annihilation 
of  that  machine  and  to  the  rescue  and 
restoration  of  that  one  of  its  victims,  the 
sight  of  whose  mangling  and  suffering 
brought  unshed  tears  to  the  eyes  and  silent 
curses  to  the  lips  of  these  Americans  so 
often  during  the  long  two  and  a  half 
years  of  the  relief  work. 

We  were  not  haters  of  Germany  when 
we  went  to  Belgium.  We  have  simply, 
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Headquarters      Nights 

by  inescapable  sights  and  sounds  and 
knowledge  forced  on  us,  been  made  into 
what  we  have  become.  If  we  hate  Prus- 
sians and  Prussianism  now,  it  is  because 
Prussia  and  Prussianism  have  taught  us 
to  hate  them.  Whom  have  they  ever 
taught  to  love  them? 

The  work  of  the  Relief  Commission 
was  carried  on  under  a  series  of  guaran- 
ties given  by  the  succeeding  German 
governors-general,  the  Berlin  Foreign 
Office,  and  the  Great  General  Staff  of 
the  German  armies.  These  guaranties 
committed  the  German  authorities,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  work,  to  the  non- 
requisition  of  the  food-supplies  imported 
into  Belgium  and  to  non-interference 
with  our  distribution  of  these  supplies. 
Later  they  included  the  non-requisition 
of  the  food-stuffs  produced  within  the 
country,  and  the  non-purchase  of  these 
native  crops  for  the  use  of  the  German 
army.  Also  they  contained  the  positive 
promise  that  the  Commission  should  en- 
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Headquarters      Nights 

joy  all  reasonable  facilities  to  do  its  benef- 
icent work  and  to  be  able  to  satisfy  itself 
that  the  guaranties  as  to  non-requisition 
and  purchase  were  strictly  lived  up  to. 

In  general  these  guaranties  have  been 
maintained;  the  one  respecting  the  non- 
requisition  of  the  imported  supplies  in 
particular  has  been  scrupulously  regarded. 
Of  course,  if  it  had  not  been,  the  work 
would  have  stopped  abruptly  at  the  mo- 
ment of  its  disregard.  But  in  detail,  in  the 
relationship  with  German  officialdom  and 
German  soldiery,  made  necessary  in  the 
carrying  on  of  the  work,  difficult  in  itself 
under  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
we  were  harassed  and  delayed  and  tricked 
and  bullied  in  a  thousand  ways,  but  al- 
most always  under  cover  of  a  sophisticated 
and  specious  reasoning.  A  German  offi- 
cial is  no  less  plausible  than  brutal. 
There  was  always  a  protracted  debate,  a 
delaying  argument,  an  exasperating  show 
of  consideration  and  conference,  when- 
ever we  protested  and  pleaded  and  de- 

86 


Headquarters      Nights 

manded  that  our  work  be  not  interfered 
with. 

The  dying  of  children,  the  weakening  of 
women  and  men,  the  advance  of  disease, 
were  not  arguments  that  we  could  push 
forward  to  our  advantage;  there  was  al- 
ways a  convenient  *  military  exigency'  to 
put  these  summarily  out  of  court.  The 
argument  had  to  turn  on  the  form  of 
words  in  the  guaranties;  this  was  suscep- 
tible of  debate,  this  was  a  matter  to  con- 
sider. 

The  machine  seemed  to  have  a  curi- 
ous regard  for  our  ^scraps  of  paper* 
except  when  it  was  more  convenient  to 
disregard  them  entirely,  which  was  not 
often,  although  always  possible.  In  this 
respect  we  were  constantly  surprised, 
having  always  in  mind  the  original  noto- 
rious scrap-of-paper  incident.  Perhaps 
the  machine  has  become  a  little  sensitive 
to  paper  troubles. 

A  prolific  source  of  difficulty  for  us  was 
the  lack  of  clear  demarcation  among  the 
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Headquarters      Nights 

many  wheels  and  parts  of  the  machine, 
and  a  lack  of  coordination  among  these 
bits  of  mechanism.  But  sharp  special- 
ization and  thorough  coordination  are 
generally  supposed  to  be  exactly  the  basis 
of  the  reputed  high  organization  and  effi- 
ciency of  the  German  government.  Be 
that  true  of  all  the  rest  of  German  admin- 
istration or  not,  I  do  not  know;  I  only 
know  it  is  not  true  of  German  adminis- 
tration in  Belgium.  A  difficulty  over  the 
movement  of  canal  boats;  over  the  cen- 
soring and  transmission  of  our  necessary 
mails  between  the  Brussels  central  offices 
and  the  provinces;  over  the  circulation  of 
our  workers  and  their  motor-cars ;  over  the 
printing  and  posting  of  our  protecting 
placards  on  warehouses  and  railway 
wagons;  or  over  what  not  else — it  made 
no  difference.  Never  was  there  a  well- 
defined  course  of  procedure  for  us;  never 
could  we  quickly  find  the  proper  depart- 
ment of  the  government  to  which  to  apply 
and  from  which  to  obtain  decision  in  any 


Headquarters      Nights 

of  these  and  the  many  other  cases  of 
trouble. 

It  was  indeed  precisely  because  of  this 
constant  uncertainty,  and  a  final  recog- 
nition of  the  difficulty  by  Governor-Gen- 
eral von  Bissing,  that  there  was  finally 
established — just  a  year  after  the  relief 
work  was  begun — the  Vermittlungsstelle, 
to  which  all  our  troubles  were  first  to  be 
referred,  to  be  in  turn  passed  on  by  it  into 
the  whirring  interior  of  the  creaking  ma- 
chine, there  to  be  whirled  around  until 
some  kind  of  final  or  provisional  decision 
was  ejected. 

But  these  interior  processes  of  diges- 
tion and  resynthesis — for  what  went  in 
always  came  out  in  a  different  form — 
took  time,  and  time  too  often  freighted 
with  awful  significance  to  the  helpless, 
waiting,  hungering  Belgians.  But  the 
machine  took  little  account  of  human 
suffering,  or  human  lives,  even.  It  took 
the  time  that  its  incapacity  made  neces- 
sary, and  turned  out  its  work  in  the  in- 
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Headquarters      Nights 

complete  or  distorted  form  that  its  clum- 
siness assured.  This  must  seem,  in  the 
face  of  the  popular  conception  of  German 
administrative  organization,  like  uncon- 
sidered and  exaggerated  writing.  But 
it  is  not.  It  is  the  revelation  of  simple 
truth. 

Under  whatever  detailed  guaranties, 
or  on  the  basis  of  no  matter  how  elab- 
orate regulations,  an  inevitable  require- 
ment for  the  carrying  on  of  our  work 
was  a  certain  element  of  trust  by  the 
German  authorities  in  the  correct  be- 
havior of  our  American  workers.  The 
struggle  between  German  officialdom's 
need  for  an  absolute  control  of  us,  be- 
cause any  or  all  of  us  were  potential  spies 
— we  were,  of  course — and  the  impossi- 
bility, under  existing  circumstances,  of 
establishing  any  such  effective  control, 
resulted  in  a  state  of  affairs  that  was  ludi- 
crous when  it  was  not  too  irritating  to  be 
anything  else. 

The  control  was  attempted  by  a  rigor- 
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Headquarters      Nights 

ous  set  of  restrictive  rules  concerning  the 
movements  of  the  Americans  and  their 
cars,  prohibitions  against  carrying  any 
letters  except  certain  censored  official 
ones,  and  a  careful  reissuing  of  passes  each 
month  for  all  of  the  men  connected  with 
the  relief  work.  Our  compliance  with 
these  regulations  was  checked  on  all  motor 
trips  by  a  regular  inspection  of  passes, 
including  the  special  ones  of  chauffeur 
and  motor,  a  recording  of  the  movement 
of  the  car,  and  sometimes  an  examination 
of  the  contents  of  bag  and  pockets,  at  all 
the  sentry  posts  scattered  along  the  roads. 
These  posts  were  so  abundant  in  the  early 
days — when  there  were  soldiers  to  spare — 
that  we  would  be  stopped  a  dozen  times 
between  Brussels  and  Antwerp,  less  than 
a  two-hour  trip.  In  addition  to  the  regu- 
lar inspection,  there  was  another  irregular 
one,  which  consisted  of  the  sudden  halting 
of  the  car  any  day  anywhere  along  the 
road  by  a  group  of  military-secret-service 
men,  who  made  a  close  examination,  not 
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Headquarters       Nights 

only  of  passes  and  papers,  but  of  cars  and 
persons^  The  cars  would  be  fairly  taken 
to  pieces,  tires  deflated  and  searched,  and 
gasoline  tanks  fished  in.  The  examination 
of  the  clothing  and  bodies  of  our  men  was 
no  less  thorough — and  more  disgusting. 

Now  all  this  was  good  control  to  pre- 
vent— what?  It  prevented  our  carrying 
any  persons  unauthorized  to  travel  by 
motor,  or  any  dangerous  information  in 
letters,  from  one  part  of  Belgium  to  an- 
other— from  Brussels  to  Antwerp,  say. 
But  these  possible  would-be  travelers 
could  go  without  hindrance  or  examination 
from  Brussels  to  Antwerp  by  any  one  of 
several  trains  a  day,  or  by  a  combination 
of  tram-lines  and  buses,  or  on  foot.  What 
they  might  not  do  was  to  joy-ride!  And 
if  we  wished  to  carry  any  dangerous  in- 
formation we  certainly  should  not  have 
confided  it  to  letters,  but  should  simply 
have  taken  it  as  told  us  or  discovered  by 
us,  and  made  it  over  to  whomever  we 
cared  to,  provided  he  could  understand 
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our  kind  of  French.  We  were  allowed — 
the  circumstances  of  the  work  made  it  ab- 
solutely necessary,  as  the  German  authori- 
ties recognized — to  talk  when  and  where 
and  to  whom  we  pleased. 

More  than  this  and  much  more  impor- 
tant than  this,  we  sent  out — with  the 
consent,  of  course,  of  the  Germans — three 
times  a  week,  a  mail  courier  from  Brussels 
through  the  electrified  wire  fence  and 
across  the  Belgian  frontier  into  Holland. 
The  mails  he  carried  had  been  censored 
and  sealed — the  seals  to  be  examined  at 
the  frontier — and  he  was  subject  to 
search,  regular  and  irregular,  at  any  time 
before  reaching  the  wire.  But  he  was  a 
very  intelligent  young  man,  who  spoke 
French,  German,  Flemish,  Dutch,  and 
English,  and  when  in  Holland  was  free  to 
tell  any  one  there — and  Holland's  popu- 
lation is,  at  present,  most  interestingly 
cosmopolitan — or  write  to  any  one  any- 
where— to  a  man  in  England,  say,  with  an 
interest  in  matters  in  Belgium — anything 

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he  pleased.     In  Holland  he  had  but  one 
control — his  honor.     And  there  was  an 
alternate  courier  with  this  same  privilege, 
and  several  others  of  us  had  to  go  out  often 
to  Holland.     Mr.  Hoover  and  myself  went 
back  and  forth  often — Mr.  Hoover  very 
often  and  more  or  less  regularly — between 
London  and  Belgium.     In  other  words,  if 
we  could  not  be  trusted,  there  was  abso- 
lutely no  hindrance  in  the  German  scheme 
of  control  to  our  conveying  information 
at  any  time  to  the  enemy.     And  yet  the 
exercise  of  the  absurd  control  attempted 
was  evidence  that  we  were  not  trusted. 
The  repeated  personal  examinations,  care- 
fully planned  to  catch  any  guilty  one  off 
his  guard,  outraged  our  sense  of  honor — 
and  decency.     The  whole  situation  might 
well  have  stimulated  a  man  to  accept  the 
implication  of  dishonesty  which  it  placed 
on  him  as  a  recognition  that  he  might  spy, 
if  he  could  get  away  with  it!     All  this 
absurd  pseudo-control  was  stupid  in  the 
psychology  that  dictated  it,  and  stupid  in 

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the  method  of  its  carrying  out.     It  was 
inexpedient  and  inefficient. 

And  it  was  unnecessary.  We  were  not 
spies,  and  the  German  officials  knew  it. 
If  we  were,  or  if  they  really  thought  we 
were,  their  only  sensible  and  safe  action 
would  have  been  to  remove  us.  But 
knowing  that  we  were  not  spying — in 
a  few  cases  in  which  some  over-eager 
'flat-foot'  thought  he  had  found  proof 
that  we  were,  we  were  able  brilliantly 
to  prove  the  contrary — they  neverthe- 
less treated  us  in  a  way  to  make  us  feel  and 
seem  suspect,  though  not  in  a  way  which 
would  have  prevented  us  from  spying 
and  informing  had  we  really  been  inclined 
to.  That  is  machinery,  but  not  brains. 
And  wheels  can  never  really  replace  brain- 
cells  in  human  functioning. 


95 


IV 

However,  a  pacifist,  or  a  neutral,  is 
hardly  to  be  made  into  an  adherent  of  a 
war  against  any  people  on  the  basis  of 
being  ever  so  convinced  of  the  stupidity 
of  that  people's  form  of  government,  or 
because  of  an  ego-maniacal  overestimate, 
on  the  part  of  this  people,  of  its  form  of 
Kultur.  And  it  was  something  more 
than  any  conviction  of  this  kind  that 
turned  our  group  of  American  neutrals  in 
German-occupied  Belgium  and  North 
France  into  a  shocked,  then  bitter,  and 
finally  blazing,  band  of  men  wishing  to 
slay  or  be  slain,  if  necessary,  to  prevent 
the  repetition  anywhere  of  the  things 
they  had  to  see  done  in  these  tortured 
lands. 

The  Germans  entered  Belgium  in  Au- 
gust and  September,  1914;  we  began  to 
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come  in  November.  Hence  we  saw  none 
of  the  '  atrocities '  of  the  invasion — we  saw 
only  results  of  them.  Among  these  re- 
sults, as  seen  by  us,  were,  I  hasten  to  say, 
no  women  without  breasts  or  children 
without  hands.  But  there  were  women 
without  husbands  and  sons  and  daughters, 
and  children  without  mothers  and  fathers. 
There  were  families  without  homes,  farms 
without  cattle  or  horses  or  houses,  towns 
without  town  halls  and  churches  and  most 
of  the  other  buildings,  and  even  some 
without  any  buildings  at  all,  and  a  few 
without  many  citizens.  But  there  were 
cemeteries  with  scores  and  hundreds  of 
new  graves — not  of  soldiers;  and  little 
toddling  children  who  came  up  eagerly  to 
you,  saying,  '  Mon  pere  est  mort;  ma  mere 
est  morte. '  They  were  distinguished  from 
some  of  their  playmates  by  this,  you  see! 
And  we  had  to  hear — and  endure — the 
stories,  the  myriad  stories,  of  the  relicts 
of  Dinant,  Vis6,  Tamines,  Andennes,  and 
all  the  rest.  Of  course,  there  were  stories 
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exaggerated  wilfully,  and  others  exagger- 
ated unintentionally,  simply  by  the  in- 
evitable inaccuracies  that  come  from  ex- 
citement and  mental  stress.  But  there 
were  stories  that  were  true,  all  true. 

If  we  had  had  but  to  make  acquaintance 
this  way  with  happenings  of  the  days  be- 
fore we  came!  But  there  was  no  escape 
for  us;  the  civilizing  of  Belgium  did  not 
cease  with  the  terrible  rush  over  the  land 
to  the  final  trench-lines  in  the  West.  It 
kept,  and  is  keeping,  everlastingly  on. 
And  we  had  to  see  it,  and  hear  it,  and 
feel  it.  We  had  to  see  the  citizens  of  a 
proud  and  beautiful  capital  barred  from 
walking  in  certain  of  its  streets  and  parks, 
that  elderly  Landsturmers  and  schneidige 
boy  officers  might  stroll  and  smoke  there ; 
and  to  be  sent  indoors  to  bed  every  night 
for  a  fortnight  at  eight  o'clock  to  learn 
to  be  deferential  and  friendly  to  soldiers 
who  had  slain  their  relatives  and  friends, 
not  in  the  heat  of  battle,  but  at  cool  dawn 
in  front  of  stone-walls. 
98 


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And  we  had  to  be  there  the  fateful 
night  of  Nurse  Cavell's  death;  and  the 
days  and  nights  of  many  other  Hke 
deaths  and  travestied  trials  that  pre- 
ceded them.  And  we  had  to  make  the 
acquaintanceship  of  noble  men  and 
women,  giving  all  the  hours  of  all  their 
days  to  the  relief  and  encouragement  of 
their  people,  only  to  have  them  disap- 
pear, carried  off  without  an  opportunity 
for  a  good-bye,  for  imprisonment  in  Ger- 
many, because  of  some  trivial  word  or 
act  of  indignation  at  the  sufferings  of 
their  people.  Which  carrying  off  brings 
us  to  the  final  word:  Deportations. 

There  have  been  deportations  of  one 
kind  or  another  from  Belgium  ever  since 
the  war  began.  Removal  to  Germany 
has  been  a  punishment  much  favored  by 
the  German  authorities  for  indiscreet  or 
too  uncomfortable  Belgians.  But  most 
of  these  removals  have  been  made  of 
citizens  singly  or  in  small  groups,  usually 
after  a  military  trial ;  and  the  official  morn- 
99 


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ing  placards  on  the  street  walls  have 
announced  the  alleged  special  reason  for 
each  removal  and  the  particular  period  of 
years  to  be  suffered  by  the  victim  in  Ger- 
many. Or,  rather,  did  until  it  seemed 
better — or  worse  for  the  friends — not  to 
make  any  announcements  at  all. 

But  these  removals  are  not  what  the 
world  understands  by  deportations.  The 
world  knows  hazily  of  the  rapid  gath- 
ering together  and  sending  in  large  gangs 
to  Germany — or  to  regions  in  occupied 
France  near  the  west  front — of  thousands, 
tens  of  thousands,  altogether  a  total  of 
something  more  than  one  hundred  thou- 
sand ablebodied  Belgian  men.  With  the 
exception  of  a  few  flax-workers  from  West 
Flanders,  no  women  were  sent  away,  as 
some  sensational  newspaper  accounts  have 
declared. 

The  world  knows  too,  hazily,  that  these 
deportations  were  made  in  many,  perhaps 
most,  instances  in  a  peculiarly  brutal  and 
revolting  manner,   with   a  treatment  of 


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human  beings  comparable  only  with  that 
which  might  have  been  given  to  an  equal 
number  of  cattle,  sheep,  or  swine  driven 
to  the  railways,  held  in  yards  in  the  rain 
or  sun  for  a  cursory  examination  for 
possible  infectious  disease  and  physical 
condition  generally — for  the  importers 
wanted  only  sound  animals — and  then 
packed  tightly  into  box-cars  with  enough 
feed  and  water  for  the  trip  to  the  distant 
abattoirs — enough  feed,  that  is,  if  the 
trsiins  got  through  on  schedule,  which 
they  never  did. 

The  world  knows  this  hazily,  I  say. 
Much  has  been  written  about  this  de- 
porting; about  its  causes,  the  conditions 
that  incited  German  authority  to  do  it — 
it  was  the  highest  military  authority  that 
decreed  it,  not  Von  Bissing's  Belgian  gov- 
ernment,— the  manner  of  its  doing,  its 
results.  But  the  world  needs  the  whole 
story.  Unfortunately  it  cannot  yet  be 
written.  Among  other  things  lacking  is 
the  knowledge  of  just  how  many  of  the 

lOI 


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hundred  thousand  Belgian  slaves  have 
died  and  are  to  die  in  Germany.  Some 
have  been  sent  back  hastily,  so  that  they 
would  not  die  in  Germany;  they  die  on 
the  returning  trains,  or  soon  after  they 
get  back.  Or,  what  is  worse,  some  do 
not  die,  but  continue  to  live,  helpless 
physical  wrecks. 

The  deportations  were  not  hazy  to  us. 
They  were  the  most  vivid,  shocking,  con- 
vincing single  happening  in  all  our  en- 
forced observation  and  experience  of 
German  disregard  of  human  suffering  and 
human  rights  in  Belgium.  We  did  not 
see  the  things  that  happened  to  the  de- 
ported men  in  Germany.  But  we  could 
not  help  knowing  some  of  them.  When 
the  wrecks  began  to  be  brought  back — 
the  starved  and  beaten  men  who  would 
not  sign  the  statements  that  they  had 
voluntarily  gone  to  Germany  to  work !  and 
the  starved  and  beaten  ones  who  would  not 
work  at  all;  and  the  ones  who  could  not 
work  even  when,  driven  by  fear  of  pun- 

102 


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ishment,  they  tried  to,  on  the  acorn  soup 
and  sawdust  bread  of  the  torture  camps — 
when  these  poor  wrecks  came  back,  they 
brought  their  experiences  with  them,  and 
revealed  them  by  a  few  words  and  the 
simple  exhibition  of  their  scarred  and 
emaciated  bodies. 

The  deportations  occurred  near  the  end 
of  the  period  of  our  stay  in  Belgium. 
They  were  the  final  and  the  fully  sufficient 
exhibit,  prepared  by  the  great  German 
Machine,  to  convince  absolutely  any  one 
of  us  who  might  still  have  been  clinging  to 
his  original  desperately  maintained  atti- 
tude of  neutrality,  that  it  was  high  time 
that  we  were  somewhere  else — on  the 
other  side  of  the  trench-line,  by  preference. 
There  could  be  no  neutrality  in  the  face 
of  the  deportations ;  you  are  for  that  kind 
of  thing,  or  you  are  against  it. 

We  are  against  it ;  America  is  against  it ; 
most  of  the  civilized  nations  are  against 
it.     That  is  the  hope  of  the  world. 


103 


A  Belgian  Record 


A  BELGIAN  RECORD 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  the 
Belgian  deportations,  the  following  trans- 
lation, made  by  Professor  Kellogg,  of  a 
memorial  sent  to  Governor-General  von 
Bissing  about  December  i,  191 6,  by  a 
group  of  prominent  burghers  of  Antwerp, 
will  be  of  interest.  It  is  new  to  the 
American  public. 

To  His  Excellency  Baron   von   Bissing^ 

Governor  of  Belgiuniy  in  Brussels: 
Your  Excellency, 

By  virtue  of  an  Order  of  the  Military 
Governor  of  Antwerp,  rendered  in  accord- 
ance with  the  instructions  of  the  German 
General  Government  in  Belgium,  dated 
November  2,  191 6,  our  citizens  without 
work  whose  names  are  on  the  lists  of  the 
Registry  Office  (Meldeamt)  are  instructed 
107 


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to  present  themselves  immediately  at  the 
Southern  Railway  Station.  From  there 
they  will  be  transported,  by  force  if  neces- 
sary, into  Germany,  where  they  will  be 
compelled  to  take  up  work  which  will  be 
assigned  to  them.  The  same  measures 
have  been  taken  in  the  rest  of  the  country. 
Without  having  committed  crime,  and 
without  trial,  thousands  of  our  free  citi- 
zens are  being  thus  deported,  against 
their  will,  into  an  enemy  land,  far  from 
their  homes,  far  from  their  wives  and  their 
children.  They  are  being  submitted  to 
that  most  terrible  treatment  for  free  men : 
being  forced  to  labor  as  slaves. 

We,  Deputies,  Senators,  and  notables 
of  Antwerp  and  its  environs,  would  be- 
lieve ourselves  recreant  to  all  our  duty  if 
we  allowed  such  things  to  occur  under  our 
eyes,  without  resorting  to  the  right  that 
we  have  of  addressing  the  executive  power 
under  any  circumstances,  in  order  to 
make  known  to  it  our  griefs  and  our  pro- 
tests. 

io8 


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By  what  right  is  this  forced  labor  with 
deportation  introduced  into  our  unhappy- 
country?  We  seek  in  vain  for  a  response 
to  this  question.  The  Rights  of  the 
People  condemn  such  a  measure. 

There  is  no  modern  author  who  justifies 
it.  The  articles  of  the  Convention  of 
The  Hague,  defining  requisitions  made  for 
the  benefit  of  an  occupying  army,  are 
directly  opposed  to  such  a  measure. 

The  constitutional  right  of  all  European 
countries,  including  Germany,  is  not  less 
opposed  to  it. 

The  most  illustrious  of  your  sovereigns, 
Frederick  the  Second,  has  regarded  and 
honored  as  a  dogma,  individual  liberty 
and  the  right  of  every  citizen  to  dispose " 
of  his  capacities  and  of  his  work  as  he 
wishes.  An  occupying  authority  ought 
to  respect  these  essential  principles  which 
have  been  the  common  patrimony  of 
humanity  for  centuries. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Belgian 
deported  workers,   under  the  conditions 
109 


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created  by  this  action,  will  set  free  a 
proportional  number  of  German  workers 
to  go  to  the  front  to  fight  the  brothers  and 
sons  of  the  deported  Belgians.  This 
makes  them  forced  partakers  in  the  war 
against  our  country,  something  that 
Article  52  of  the  Convention  of  The  Hague 
prohibits  in  express  terms.  That  is  not 
all.  Immediately  after  the  occupation  of 
Antwerp,  thousands  of  our  citizens  had 
fled  the  country  and  taken  refuge  in  that 
part  of  Holland  stretching  along  the 
Belgian  frontier,  but  the  German  au- 
thorities made  most  reassuring  declara- 
tions to  them. 

On  October  9th,  19 14,  General  von  Bes- 
eler,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  besieging 
army,  gave  to  negotiators  from  Contich  a 
declaration  stating:  'Unarmed  members 
of  the  Civic  Guard  will  not  be  considered 
as  prisoners  of  war.* 

Under  the  same  date,  Lieutenant- 
General  von  Schutz,  the  German  Com- 
mander of  the  Fort  of  Antwerp,  gave  out 
no 


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the  following  proclamation:  'The  under- 
signed, Commander  of  the  Fort  of  Ant- 
werp, declares  that  nothing  stands  in  the 
way  of  the  return  of  inhabitants  to  their 
country.  None  of  them  will  be  molested ; 
even  the  members  of  the  Civic  Guard,  if 
they  are  unarmed,  may  return  in  all 
security.' 

On  the  1 6th  of  November,  1914,  Car- 
dinal Mercier  communicated  to  the  popu- 
lation a  declaration  signed  by  General 
Huene,  Military  Governor  of  Antwerp, 
in  which  the  General  said,  for  purposes  of 
general  publication:  'Young  men  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  being  taken  to  Ger- 
many, either  to  be  enrolled  in  the  army  or 
to  be  employed  at  forced  labor.'  A  little 
later  the  eminent  prelate  requested  Baron 
von  der  Goltz,  Governor-General  of  Bel- 
gium, to  ratify  for  the  whole  country, 
without  limit  as  to  time,  these  guaranties 
which  General  Huene  has  given  for  the 
Province  of  Antwerp.  He  was  successful 
in  obtaining  this. 

Ill 


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Finally,  on  the  i8th  of  October,  1914, 
the  military  authorities  of  Antwerp  gave 
a  signed  statement  to  the  representative 
of  General  von  Terwiega,  Commander  of 
the  Holland  Field  Army,  to  the  effect  that 
the  young  Belgian  men  and  unarmed 
members  of  the  Belgian  Civic  Guard 
could  return  from  Holland  into  Belgium 
and  would  not  be  molested.  One  of  his 
sentences  was:  'The  rumor  according 
to  which  the  young  Belgian  men  will  be 
sent  into  Germany  ...  is  without 
any  foundation.' 

Upon  the  faith  of  these  solemn  public 
declarations,  numerous  citizens,  not  alone 
of  Antwerp  but  of  all  parts  of  the  country, 
have  returned  across  the  Holland-Bel- 
gium frontier  to  their  own  hearth-stones. 
Now  these  very  men  who,  once  free,  re- 
turned to  Belgium,  relying  upon  the  formal 
engagements  of  the  German  authorities, 
will  be  sent  to-morrow  into  Germany, 
there  to  be  forced  to  undertake  that 
labor  of  slaves  which  it  has  been  promised 


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would  never  be  put  upon  them.  Under 
these  conditions,  we  believe  it  right  to 
demand  that  the  measures  taken  for  these 
deportations  be  countermanded.  We  add 
that  the  agreement  of  Contich  formally 
stipulated  that  the  members  of  the  Civic 
Guard  would  not  be  treated  as  prisoners 
of  war.  Surely,  then,  there  can  be  no 
question  of  transferring  them  to  Ger- 
many to  give  them  a  treatment  even  more 
severe. 

The  preamble  of  the  Order  for  the  de- 
portation seems  to  reproach  our  workers 
with  their  idleness,  and  it  invokes  the 
needs  of  public  order  and  regrets  the  in- 
creasing charges  of  public  charity  to  take 
care  of  these  men.  We  beg  to  remark 
to  Your  Excellency  that,  at  the  time  of 
the  entrance  of  the  German  armies  into 
Belgium,  there  were  in  this  country  large 
stocks  of  raw  materials  whose  transfor- 
mation into  manufactured  articles  would 
have  occupied  innumerable  workers  for 
a  long  time.  But  these  stocks  of  raw 
"3 


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materials  have  been  taken  from  us  and 
carried  to  Germany. 

There  were  factories  completely 
equipped  which  could  have  been  used  to 
produce  articles  for  exportation  into  neu- 
tral countries.  But  the  machines  and  the 
tools  of  these  factories  have  been  sent  to 
Germany. 

Certainly  it  is  true  that  our  workers 
have  refused  work  offered  by  the  occupy- 
ing authorities,  because  this  work  tended 
to  assist  these  authorities  in  their  military 
operations.  Rather  than  win  large  wages 
at  this  price  they  have  preferred  to  accept 
privation.  Where  is  the  patriot,  where  is 
the  man  of  heart,  who  would  not  applaud 
these  poor  people  for  this  dignity  and  this 
courage? 

No  reproach  of  idleness  can  really  be 
made  to  our  worker  classes  who,  it  is  well 
known  everywhere,  are  second  to  none 
in  their  ardor  for  work. 

The  Order  refers  in  addition  to  the 
necessity  of  good  order,  and  refers  also  to 
114 


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the  necessity  of  not  allowing  an  increasing 
number  of  workless  people  to  become  a 
burden  on  the  public  charity. 

Public  order  has  never  caused  trouble. 
As  to  charitable  assistance,  it  is  true  that 
millions  of  francs  have  been  spent  in 
charity  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  but, 
for  the  accomplishment  of  this  immense 
effort  of  benevolence,  nothing  has  been 
asked  from  the  German  government,  nor 
even  from  the  Belgian  Treasury,  ad- 
ministered under  your  control  and  fed  by 
our  taxes.  There  should  be,  then,  no 
anxiety  on  the  part  of  Germany  concern- 
ing this  money,  which  in  no  way  comes 
from  it.  Indeed,  Your  Excellency  well 
knows  that  this  money  does  not  even 
come  from  immediate  public  charity,  but 
is  arranged  for  by  the  Comit6  National, 
which  will  continue  to  arrange  for  it  in 
the  future,  as  it  has  in  the  past. 

None,  then,  of  the  motives  invoked  to 
support  the  Order  of  deportations  seems 
to  us  to  have  any  foundation. 
115 


Headquarters       Nights 

One  would  seek  in  vain  in  all  the  history 
of  war  for  a  precedent  for  this  action. 
Neither  in  the  wars  of  the  Revolution, 
nor  of  the  Empire,  nor  in  any  which  have 
since  that  time  desolated  Europe,  has 
anyone  struck  at  the  sacred  principle  of 
the  individual  liberty  of  the  non-combat- 
ant and  peaceful  populations. 

Where  will  one  stop  in  this  war,  if 
reasons  of  State  can  justify  such  treat- 
ment? Even  in  the  colonies  forced  labor 
exists  no  longer. 

Therefore,  we  pray  Your  Excellency  to 
take  into  consideration  all  that  we  have 
just  said,  and  to  return  to  their  homes 
those  unfortunates  who  have  already 
been  sent  into  Germany  in  accordance 
with  the  Order  of  November  2,  1916. 


116 


OTHER  VOLUMES  IN   THE  SERIES  OF 
ATLANTIC  PAPERS 

PERMANENT   IN   INTEREST 

PERMANENT  IN  FORM 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  SPIRIT  OF  YOUTH 


This  book  is  a  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  suffering 
and  sacrifice  of  the  World  War,  expressed  in  a  group  of 
three  papers  of  kindred  significance,  yet  written  from 
three  different  points  of  view  by  a  Frenchman,  an 
Englishman,  and  an  American.     The  volume  includes: 

Young  Soldiers  of  France,  By  Maurice  Barres. 
The  Soul's  Experience,  By  Sir  Francis Younghusband. 
JuvENTUs  Christi,  By  Anne  C.  E.  Allinson. 

Each  writer  is  seeking  in  the  dreadful  welter  of  war 
some  common  revelation  of  spiritual  comfort  and 
advance.  Is  the  agony  of  these  years  meaningless  and 
wanton?  Is  the  heartsickening  struggle  brutal  and 
brutalizing,  and  nothing  more?  Each,  in  his  or  her  own 
way,  finds  an  answer. 

One,  a  questioner  by  temperament,  has  come  to  see, 
to  his  own  amazement,  the  regeneration  of  human  life 
in  the  miracle  which  the  war  has  worked  in  the  younger 
generation.  Another,  by  profession  a  soldier,  went 
unscathed  and  unbelieving  through  the  perilous  march 
to  Lhassa,  only  to  find,  as  the  result  of  a  grave  and 
disabling  accident,  a  new  and  vivid  faith  born  of  phys- 
ical impotence  and  pain.  The  third,  an  American 
woman,  whose  adventures  are  of  the  spirit,  has  come 
to  her  new  belief  from  far  distant  fields  of  the  imagina- 
tion. All  three  unite  in  confidence  that  the  generation 
now  culminating  in  manhood  is  passing  through  black- 
ness into  light  brighter  than  any  dawn  we  have  known. 

The  spirit  of  the  volume  is  the  spirit  of  youth,  learn- 
ing in  the  Book  of  Life,  trusting  that  the  best  is  yet  to 
be,  and  reading  with  shining  eyes  to  the  end.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  Leo  Latil,  a  young  soldier  of  France,  who, 
shortly  before  his  death  on  the  edge  of  a  German  trench, 
wrote  to  his  family: 

"Our  sacrifices  will  be  sweet  if  we  win  a  great  and  glorious  victory, 
— if  there  shall  be  more  light  for  the  souls  of  men;  if  truth  shall 
come  forth  more  radiant,  more  beloved.  We  must  not  forget  that 
we  are  fighting  for  great  things — for  the  very  greatest  things.  In 
every  sense  this  victory  of  ours  will  be  a  victory  for  the  forces  of 
idealism." 

'  The  War  and  the  Spirit  of  Youth'  is  an  inspiring, 
heartening  little  volume.  It  is  well  printed,  handsomely 
bound,  and  sells  postpaid  for  one  dollar. 

The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press 

Three  Park  Street,  Boston 


THE  ASSAULT  ON  HUMANISM 

By  Paul  Shorey 


The  Battle  of  the  Books  is  as  keen  today  as  it  was  in 
the  time  of  the  Renaissance.  Within  the  last  decade, 
especially,  the  forces  of  the  'old'  and  the  'new' 
learning  have  been  at  full  tilt.  ^  Under  the  leadership 
of  Dr.  Abraham  Flexner,  President  Eliot,  and  other 
distinguished  members  of  the  'new  school/ practical 
education  has  gained  an  apparent  ascendancy,  and  the 
champions  of  classical  culture  have  been  put  on  the 
defensive. 

Yet  the  classicists  are  not  vanquished — not  by  any 
means;  and  it  is  not  likely  that  they  ever  will  be,  so 
long  as  they  have  such  leaders  as  Professor  Shorey. 

The  Assault  on  Humanism  is  a  brilliant  offensive- 
defensive  on  the  study  of  the  classics  in  American 
schools  and  colleges.  So  ably  does  the  author  marshal 
his  forces  against  the  '  Modernists, '  so  effectively  does 
he  use  his  sarcastic  wit  and  his  vast  fund  of  learning, 
that  his  writing  in  itself  is  an  argument  of  the  first 
order  for  retaining  the  study  of  cultural  subjects. 

"We  are  again  grateful  to  Dr.  Flexner.  If  it  had  not  been  for 
his  attack  upon  classical  and  humanistic  culture.  Professor  Shorey 
might  never  have  written  this  delightful  and  inspiring  little  volume, 
and  the  world  would  have  been  so  much— and  it  would  indeed 
have  been  much— poorer. "  ^^^  York  Tribune. 

'  'Professor  Shorey  upholds  the  standard  of  sound  learning  and 
literary  culture — qualities  which  are  in  need  of  defenders  in  a  land 
where  the  half-educated  are  at  present  more  aggressive  than  the 
educated.  Professor  Shorey  says  to  his  antagonists:  'You  must 
not  argue  that  Latin  is  useless,  without  discriminating  the  various 
meanings  of  utility.  You  must  not  tell  the  public  that  the  science 
of  psychology  has  disproved  mental  discipline  in  general,  or  the 
specific  value  of  the  discipline  of  analytic  language  study  in  par- 
ticular. For,  if  you  are  a  competent  psychologist,  you  know  that 
it  is  false.' "  Springfield  Republican. 

"If  Professor  Shorey's  literary  style,  the  wealth  of  information 
which  his  article  shows,  the  clearness  of  his  analysis,  the  richness 
and  the  aptness  of  his  illustrations,  are  any  indication  of  the  results 
produced  by  the  study  of  the  humanities,  he  has  in  this  article  gone 
far  to  prove  the  desirability  of  a  system  of  education  in  which  these 
humanities  have  a  prominent  part. "  xhe  American  School. 

The  Assault  on  Humanism  is  a  charming  example 
of  bookmaking.     It  sells  postpaid  for  60  cents. 

The  Atlantic  Monthly  Press 
Three  Park  Street,  Boston 


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